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36 — Vanguard, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2019
acchaeus and the perils of
a ta collector
WHEN the tenure of a chief executive is
coming to an end, there’s usually a
feverish outbreak of schemes to push him over
the edge, for good or bad reasons. Lobbyists
are masters of the game. They keep a diary of
appointment and termination dates - including
possible renewal where the law permits - and
also keep a meticulous dossier of everything
that happens in-between to sway public opinion
and, possibly, the appointor.
If the chief executive under scrutiny is a tax
collector, then he is despised with the venom
reserved for acchaeus, the biblical tax
collector. acchaeus was the Israelite hired by
the occupying Roman government to collect
taxes and levies from his own people. Even
though he appeared to be an honest guy, doing
his ob as best as he could, the system was so
badly tainted that anyone who held that ob
was viewed with suspicion. Being a rich and
short man only made things worse for
acchaeus.
Many modern-day acchaeuses like the
Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue
Service, Tunde Fowler, may be taller and,
therefore, have no need to climb a sycamore
tree to find salvation, but their professional
perils have not changed much. As Fowler’s
first term comes to an end, there has been
heightened interest in whether or not he would
be retained, with arguments flying on both
sides. In a country so spoilt by oil rent that
government is only ust beginning to take
taxation seriously against a wall of resentment
by the public that considers paying taxes
punishment, tax collectors are still as despised
today as they were in the days of acchaeus.
And their enemies are vocal and influential.
With oil revenues ever more precarious and
politicians promising heaven on earth, tax
collectors need the skills of acchaeus, if not
his stature, to survive. n his appointment as
the nation’s chief tax collector in 2015, Fowler
was under pressure to live up to the hype
following his accomplishments as the
chairman of Lagos State Internal Revenue
Service, LIRS, where he raised the internally
generated revenue from N600million in 1999
to N20billion in 2015.
The challenges at FIRS were daunting, yet
Fowler was also under pressure to meet the
high standards set by his predecessor, Ifueko
moigui- kauru. With crude oil prices
plunging as low as $30 per barrel at some
point in the life of the Buhari administration,
Fowler needed something beyond the
precarious balancing act of acchaeus to raise
revenue from taxes. The economic recession
compounded his misery.
The plunge
But he took the plunge. Fowler plugged
internal leakages and loopholes instigated by
insiders; adopted more efficient tax collection
methods; and enticed a large army of tax
defaulters through the oluntary Assets Income
Declaration Scheme, which raked in
N17billion within the first six months of
introduction.
By 2016, FIRS had brought into the tax net
800,000 new corporate taxpayers and by the
first half of 2018, tax revenue had increased by
42 per cent. Non-oil tax revenue in the same
year was a record N2.852trillion, representing
more than 50 per cent of N5.3trillion that
year. By the end of 2018, he had almost
doubled the revenue benchmark from
N3.2trillion in 2015 to N5.3trillion. Also, the
FIRS generated N1.5 trillion revenue in the
first quarter of 2019, and revenue from nonoil
taxes had increased to 11 percent compared
to the previous year.
With more reforms, including but not limited
to tackling multiple taxes duties levies;
improvements in infrastructure; removal of
red tape and better regulatory environment;
reduction in corporate taxes; and possibly,
introduction of flat rate tax, the revenue from
the tax pie could grow beyond its present level.
As things are now,
the relatively narrow
taxable base,
comprising mainly
distressed formal
sector workers and
struggling small
business owners, is
reaching its elastic
limits. While going
after the big-time
dodgers, the
government needs to
grow the economy
more aggressively and
nurture small businesses to expand the tax base.
Also, the challenge for countries like Nigeria
is how to substantially fund their budgets from
incomes not determined by the outside world,
which include extractive resources, loans and
grants. Collaboration and involvement, as
well as deploying technology have been crucial
to the changes at the FIRS in the last four years.
The service signed a memorandum of
understanding with the state revenue boards
to exchange taxpayer information.
It also broadened its AT collection scope
with the adoption of States Accountants
General, SAG, collection platform, AT Auto-
Collect, integration of GIFMIS platform with
ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs,
and through e-Service payment option. Due to
these efforts, FIRS and states have over 19
million taxpayers nationwide by 2018.
Collabo
Through collaborative efforts, monitoring
and compliance tracking have also improved.
And because technology has been put to better
use, it is easier to file tax obligations. By
aggressively enforcing the Taxpayers
Identification Number, TIN, registration
exercise, 45 million taxpayers would be
captured in the tax net by December 2019. The
figure was less than half of that when Fowler
took over in 2015.
About 6,772 accounts with balances of
between N1billion and N5billion were
identified without their owners having TIN and
did not file any tax returns. They are reportedly
being engaged on what they should henceforth
be paying to FIRS yearly as tax. Some other
Will the hawks
in government
allow Fowler to
carry through the
reforms required
to further
strengthen the
FIRS?
measures Fowler
introduced to grow
FIRS tax returns in
the last four years
i n c l u d e
automation and
incentives for
taxpayers
Integrated Tax
Administration
System, ITAS; e-
registration; e-
Filing; e-Payment;
e-Receipt; e-TCC,
Electronic tax certificate. He is also focusing
on big players in the property market who
control big portfolios in key cities like Lagos,
Abu a and Port Harcourt and don’t pay tax on
them.
Also worthy of note is that within the last
four years, FIRS has helped facilitate the
payment of N135.8b as outstanding Pay As
You Earn, PAYE, tax liabilities owed the states
by Federal Ministries, Departments and
Agencies, MDAs, from 2002 to 2016. The
recent reclassification of Nigeria by the World
Bank among the most improved countries with
regards to the Ease of Doing Business,
attributed substantially to the institutional
reforms introduced by Fowler at FIRS, means
that the future is not gloomy without oil.
With Nigeria’s 2020 national budget
estimated at N10trillion and considered
perhaps the most ambitious ever laid down by
a Nigerian government, taxation becomes a
core source of revenue pro ections, especially
with unstable oil price. It is a reminder of the
conveniently reminisced glorious past,
particularly pre-Independence Nigeria, when
regions funded their budgets from taxation,
agriculture and real production, not oil rent.
Will the hawks in government allow Fowler
to carry through the reforms required to further
strengthen the FIRS or will the lobbyists’
pressure for change prove too hard to resist
Whichever way the government decides, the
peddling of the long knives that started with
acchaeus in Jericho won’t end with Fowler.
But the government’s answer will send an
important message about how serious the
government is with its reforms.
:Van- :@vanguardnews :@vanguardnewsNEWS HOTLINES:
VIVO launches V17 Pro smartphone
S MARTPHONE
company, VIVO has
launched the V17 Pro
smartphone, a stylish device
with amazing features that
will not only compete with
flagships from competitors
but could displace them.
The company said it is not
deterred by the Nigerian
mobile phone market, with
its over 20 mobile phone
brands, which presumably
shipped over 100 million
devices and served about 40
million users.
It noted that these and
more were considered
when it was about to launch
its flagship product, V17 Pro
into the Nigerian market.
According to a statement,
the firm stated that ''Vivo
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32MP and 8MP (Wide
Angle Camera). The front
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‘’Due to the peculiarity of
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notch on the phone to
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but then, Vivo has found a
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