By Philip Yatai
The Kaduna State Internal Revenue Service (KDIRS) says it generated N91.2 billion Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) from 2015 to date.
KDIRS Executive Chairman, Alhaji Mukhtar Ahmed made this known at a news conference in Kaduna on Monday to review achievements of the organisation.
He said that the revenue service has been able to increased revenue generation from N11.8 billion in 2015 to N23.5 billion in 2016; N26.5 billion in 2017 and N29.4 billion in 2018.
“We have been able to increase annual IGR by 30 per cent and achieved monthly average collection of N2.5 billion.
“We are hoping that the 2018 figure will rise to N30 billion after reconciliation with Ministry of Finance ,” he said.
He attributed the impressive achievements to the current government’s reform and restructuring of the tax administration system.
He said that the reform was hinged on IGR mapping, strategy and operational model, personnel management framework and transition plan from revenue board to revenue service.
Ahmed also said that the state Tax Codification and Consolidation Law, 2016, a child of the reform has centralised and automated tax collection.
According to him, the new law prohibited cash collection and blocked leakages, adding that about 120 new staff were also recruited and several workshop held to improve the capacity of tax officials.
“Other initiatives include flexible payment system, implementation of presumptive and consumption tax regime, harmonised Local Government Area (LGA) demand notice.
“We equally established central tax information and compliant office at KDIRS Headquarters, established functional revenue offices across the 23 LGAs and launched a public private dialogue manual,” he said.
On automation and operational reform, Ahmed said that the revenue service now issue electronic tax clearance certificate that can be verified online by third parties.
“KDIRS system has also been interface with that of Kaduna Geographic Information System and Joint Tax Board data base for Information sharing.
“Our system is also integrated with the paydirect platform of interswitch; full automation of schools collection process and vehicle registration among others,” he said. (NAN)
