BY BANYO TEMITAYO
CHAIRMAN, Federal Inland Revenue Service, Mohammed Nami, on Thursday, said the Service was projecting N5.9 trillion revenue for 2021.
Out of this, non-oil component is estimated at N4.2trillion, while N1.6trillion is projected for oil revenue.
Nami disclosed this during a meeting on the 2021 budget defence of FIRS with the House of Representatives Commitee on Finance, chaired by Hon. James Falake.
According to him, the cost of collecting the projected revenue has been put at N289.25 billion, compared with the N180.76 billion budget in 2020, earmarked to fund the three operational expenditure heads for the year.
Nami said, “Out of the proposed expenditure of N289.25 billion across the three expenditure heads, the sum of N147.08 billion and N94.97 billion are to be expended on Personnel and Overhead Costs against 2020 budgeted sum of N97.36 billion and N43.64 billion respectively.
“Also, the sum of N47.19 billion is estimated to be expended on capital items against the budgeted sum of N27.80 billion in 2020. The sum is to cater for ongoing and new projects for effective revenue drive.”
On why the FIRS could not realise the expected N5 trillion target for 2020, the Chairman said the COVID-19 lockdown affected revenue drive.
He also attributed the increase in the agency’s recurrent expenditure to the new salary structure, which followed the recruitment of more staff.
He explained that there were about 1,800 staff recruited by the previous management between 2019 and 2020.
The FIRS chairman said, “If you have more staff, surely, their salary will go up. Taxes that you are going to pay on their behalf will go up.
“The National Housing Fund contribution, PENCOM contribution will go up. For those promoted, you have to implement a new salary regime for them. There’s also the issue of inflation and exchange rate differential.”
