FIRS Seek Prompt Tax Payment As NITDA IT Levy Hits N168.8bn

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has called on companies to pay the obligatory one per cent tax levy used for the development of Nigeria’s information technology industry with N168.8 billion collected since 2008.

Speaking in Lagos yesterday at a one-day stakeholder forum organised by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) in collaboration with FIRS, the executive chairman of FIRS, Muhammed Nami, said the agency will continue to ensure that no revenue gap is left uncovered in its quest to improve tax administration particularly with deployment of technology across its service lines and internal operations.

Nami who was represented at the event by the group lead, General Tax Operations Group, FIRS, Mr. Abba Kabir, lauded the agency’s work with NITDA while noting that the interactive session with stakeholders was to report back to them how taxpayers’ monies have been expended.

The NITDA is funded amongst other things as enumerated in Section 12 of the NITDA Act, the payment of a levy of one per cent (1%) of profit before tax of companies and enterprises enumerated in the 3rd schedule of the NITDA Act which include pension managers and pension related companies, telecommunication companies, cyber companies, insurance companies and banks/other financial institutions.

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“As most of you are aware, FIRS is a key partner of NITDA. We assist in the assessment, collection and accounting for their revenue, as stated in Section 16 of the NITDA Act (2007). The levy imposed under Section 12 of the NITDA Act is due and payable within 60 days after FIRS serves the notice of assessment on a company.

“In 2022, FIRS collected and remitted the sum of N22,574,099,600.06 and the total sum collected by FIRS on behalf of the NITDA from 2008 to December 2022 is N168, 847, 118, 268.22. It is important to showcase the achievements of the NITDA, particularly as taxpayers can easily make a connection between the taxes paid and its socio-economic impact which will also assist to improve voluntary compliance,” he said.

Showcasing the achievements of the NITDA is important for us at FIRS, especially where the introduction of technology in the tax collection and payment processes, positively impacts on taxpayers and the ability of the government to deliver social goods, critical infrastructure and other necessary services, he added.

Earlier on in his welcome address, the director-general of NITDA, Inuwa Kashifu Abdullahi, said the agency requires the growth of the NITDA IT Levy fund to address the numerous challenges facing the Nigerian technology industry such as limited infrastructure, skills shortage, limited market access and early-stage funding.

Stating that the Nigerian IT ecosystem is vibrant and has about 3,340 startups as at December 2022, and home to five out of seven unicorns in Africa, he said it has optimal talent development that can drive the Nigerian economy.

Furthermore, the NITDA boss said the Nigerian IT ecosystem boasts of large and growing economy, access to market, entrepreneurial culture, supporting government policies and access to talent which has attracted about 30 per cent of the foreign investments coming to Africa.

He said Nigerian IT startups attracted $704 million in 2019, $440 million in 2022, $1.7 billion in 2021 and $1.2 billion in 2022 from investors. “Out of four million developers needed globally today, Nigeria can conveniently provide two million developments to the world thus attracting about $40 billion from the value chain.

Other achievements of NITDA he mentioned include creating 30,000 IT jobs and retaining about 100,000 IT jobs during the Covid-19 period and creating about 7,680 data jobs through the establishment of the Nigerian Data Privacy Regulation (NDPR).

Abdullahi added that NITDA launched one million Software Developers Initiative which has trained 215,524 Nigerians and trained 3.3 million Nigerians on digital literacy with a target to achieve 98 per cent data literacy in the future.