The Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, has stated that over 27 million traders in the country do not pay tax to the Federal Government thereby making zero contribution to the national treasury.
This was disclosed on Tuesday, July 26, by the chairman of the Joint Tax Board, Mr Babatunde Fowler in his opening remarks at the 135th meeting of the Board in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
Fowler said out of the 37.5 million individuals making their livelihoods in the informal sector of the Nigerian economy, only 10 million were captured in the tax net leaving out over sixty per cent of players in the sector.
Reiterating the importance of tax to the economic survival of any country, Fowler who is also the executive chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, noted that the main objective of the Abeokuta meeting was to bring into the tax net at least additional 10 million individuals from the informal sector before December this year.
“Now, I’ll give you a little idea of the position within the informal sector. Those in the small scale business areas claim they have over 37.5 million members. What we have on our database nationwide, as individuals, is only 10 million. That shows you there is about 27.5 million individuals who are not paying taxes,” he said.
“But we also have small enterprises, small businesses that are not paying taxes. But among ourselves as members of Joint Tax Board, all the states chairmen have agreed to add a minimum of 10 million individuals before December 31st. So, we are going round the whole nation preaching the word, hoping that people realise that we cannot continue to rely on oil revenue. That we have to chip in to make sure that Nigeria continues to improve.”
The revenue boss however informed the gathering comprising all the 36 executive chairmen across the federation or their representatives that tax evasion in the informal sector is not peculiar to Nigeria saying even developed nations with all their advancement in database are still confronted with the problem.
Fowler then urged the state governments to do more in forming synergy with federal government to improve tax collection in the country.
