The House of Representatives, on Thursday, ordered the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, to recover all over N5.19tn taxes owed by ministries, departments and agencies, oil companies as well as individuals.
The House gave the order after it adopted a motion by the member representing Oredo Federal Constituency of Edo State, Esosa Iyawe.
Iyawe’s motion was titled, “Alleged non-remittance and under-remittance of tax by ministries, departments, and agencies of government, oil companies, and other organisations.”
Iyawe (Delta, LP) said in 2021, “the FIRS revealed that N17. 69bn was owed in taxes by some companies, whose addresses were untraced to date, but no action was taken to locate or recover the funds.
“Audit reports from 2015 to 2019 revealed government agencies owing hundreds of billions in FIRS taxes, comprising underpayments and under-recoveries and over 5,000 companies and MDAs of the Federal Government owing N5.2tn in withholding taxes,” he said.
Iyawe said the Federal Government was being denied fund through under-remittance and non-remittance of tax fund needed to drive its policies for national development, adding that “if the situation was not urgently addressed, the effect could be crippling on the country’s already dwindling economy.”
He emphasised that small-scale businesses in Nigeria were frustrated by multiple taxations by the FIRS while “states and local government authorities, multinational companies and other corporate organisations are getting the kid-glove treatment.”
The House orderd the FIRS to embark on a tax recovery drive while also mandating the Committees on Public Accounts and Finance to investigate the non-compliance on tax remittance by MDAs of government, oil companies, and other organisations, “with a view to ensuring that all debts in taxes owed the Federal Government are duly recovered, and report back within four weeks for further legislative action.”