Nigeria’s apex tax regulatory body, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has revealed that Nigeria’s highest taxpaying corporate brands and most compliant taxpaying organisations are MTN Nigeria, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, Northern Cables Processing and Manufacturing Company (NOCACO), Airtel Africa and Chevron Limited.
The Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Muhammad Nami revealed this while delivering his opening remarks at the 2nd Annual National Tax Dialogue with the theme: “Tax Harmonisation for Enhanced Revenue Generation”, at the State House Conference Centre four days ago.
Nami calls for all hands to be on deck to support the tax system and make it function efficiently and also urged politicians to treat tax revenue generation as an apolitical issue.While highlighting the revenue profile of the country in 2021, which showed that the FIRS had contributed a monthly average of 59.45% of revenue shared by FAAC, Mr. Nami stated that it had become clear that the survival of the nation is dependent on tax revenue.
Muhammad Nami further highlighted how the FIRS was able to record an unprecedented feat in tax revenue generation in 2021, where the Service surpassed its target and collected N6.4 trillion, the highest collection ever in the history of the FIRS.Speaking on the theme of the event, the FIRS Executive Chairman noted that the dialogue was imperative given the prevalent issues of competing revenue agencies.
“This discussion is imperative,” he said, “in view of the fact that despite our 38 tax authorities, several tax laws, and numerous taxes or levies, the majority of the taxpaying public remain outside the tax net.
“The tax-dodgers found it convenient to meander among the competing revenue agencies escaping their tax obligations. The result is suboptimal revenue generation at all tiers of government.”
Declaring the Dialogue open, President Muhammadu Buhari stated that a key deliverable of the dialogue is to promote synergy in tax administration among the different tiers of government.
President Buhari also noted that: ”Harmonising taxpayer-identification across the country is a good start, but we must do more to promote ease of doing business—including ease of tax compliance—in Nigeria.
”Multiplicity of tax administration is as undesirable as the multiplicity of taxes; it creates uncertainty and instability; and above all, it is inefficient,” the President said.
In her opening remarks, the Honourable Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, Hajia (Dr.) Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed highlighted the importance of the National Tax Dialogue, stating that it was designed to engage stakeholders in the Nigerian tax space in meaningful discourse to glean information, ideas, and experience in the aid of policy formulation and improved tax environment.
“We have observed that countries having a lower economy and weak tax base but streamlined tax administration has fared much better than Nigeria in terms of tax revenue collection, and the ratio of tax-to-GDP”.
MTN Nigeria was applauded as the most tax-compliant organisation and a top 20 taxpayer in Nigeria for the 2021 tax year.
In 2021, MTN Nigeria’s total tax contribution to all government agencies including the FIRS amounted to N757.6bn representing approximately 13.5% of the total N6.4trn tax revenue FIRS collection for the year.
“I am delighted at our performance and recognition at this year’s National Tax Dialogue event. While the past 24 months have been challenging for our country and nations worldwide, we are committed to supporting the Federal Government’s ongoing Economic Growth Recovery Plan (EGRP),” said Modupe Kadri, Chief Financial Officer (CFO), who received awards at the event on behalf of MTN Nigeria.
“We will continue to invest heavily in network expansion with a focus on expanding access to under-served communities. We also plan to connect an additional 2,000 rural communities in 2022,” he added.