Senate Okays N168.8bn Budget For FIRS

The Senate, on Wednesday, approved N168.8 billion budget for the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) for the 2020 fiscal year.

The upper chamber also approved a one-off N100bn special-purpose intervention fund for the agency’s key capital projects.

Specifically, the fund is to assist the FIRS complete its head office project within 12 months; six training schools; 30 prototype tax operations offices; purpose-built facilities for efficient taxation of upstream petroleum industry and ICT infrastructure to identify and track digital transactions.

The approval followed the consideration of the report of the Senate Committee on Finance as presented by its Chairman, Solomon Olamilekan Adeola.

Sen Adeola said N1.56tn was projected as oil revenue and N4.502tn from non-nil revenue, totalling N6tn.

The senate, while adopting the recommendations of the committee, charged the service to digitise all processes in the administration of tax to cope with the rapidly increasing online economic activities without physical presence.

The committee also recommended that the FIRS (Establishment) Act and other tax laws should be amended to make it possible for the service to modernise its operations with relevant technology.

It also recommended that the budget of FIRS for any financial year must be approved by the senate by the end of October of the preceding year “to ensure strict compliance with the January to December financial year.”