The Federal Government has discovered N100 billion as tax revenue shortfall by contractors between 2012 and 2017, Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, disclosed last week.
The Ministry of Finance, in a statement, lamented that this was eating deep into the revenue of government, especially at this time the country was recovering from recession.
As part of effort to stop this, Adeosun has ordered directed the Accountant General of the Federation, Mr Ahmed Idri, to ensure that vendors of Ministries, Departments & Agencies (MDAs) display their Tax Identification Numbers (TINs) on their invoices before payments are made to contractors by the MDAs.
She added that the directive to the government vendors was in compliance with the provisions of both the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, and the Procurement Acts of 2007.
The minister, in a memo titled ‘Compliance with Tax Payments by Federal Government Vendors.’ disclosed that persistent leakages in revenue remittances by vendors were uncovered by the Government’s Project Lighthouse, a systemwide revenue intelligence data-warehouse.
The leakages, according to her, were due to lack of TIN particularly on Value Added Tax (VAT), Withholding Tax (WHT) and other related inflows into the government coffers.
“In order to address these lapses in the implementation of the 2017 budget as well as boost the revenue accruable to the government, all MDAs should be directed to insist that invoices submitted by vendors for payments must clearly state the TIN,” she said.
“This is to confirm tax compliance by relevant government vendors before payments are effected,” the Minister explained.
She noted that spot checks would be undertaken on MDAs to confirm compliance with the directive.
