Era of Tax Evasion over – NFIU Warns Defaulters
The Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) has warned defaulters that they will no longer get away with tax evasion as the crime is negatively affecting the government’s capacity to meet the yearnings of law-abiding citizens.
Speaking at the first National Revenue Assurance Summit involving states Internal Revenue Services in Abuja on Tuesday, the Managing Director of NFIU, Hajiya Hafsat Bakari, said while the NFIU had collaborated extensively with the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to address the problem of tax evasion, the loopholes at subnational levels are stopping the efforts from yielding the desired results.
She informed the gathering that the NFIU had established a dedicated tax crimes and revenue assurance department, to sanction defaulters.
“All participants at this meeting are aware of the fact that our nation has moved into a new fiscal era, where the imperative of governance and the need to deliver infrastructure and vital services to our citizens require innovation and out-of-the-box thinking.
“At the national and sub-national levels, our collective ambition to grow the economy requires us to diversify the source of revenue available to government. We cannot afford to rely just on proceeds from the oil and gas industry.
“To build the schools we need, to educate our children, to provide effective healthcare, to build roads and bridges, to secure our communities, we recognise that our focus should shift towards Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).
“Therefore, we need to have efficient and effective systems in place to ensure that everyone pays their fair share of the tax burden. There can be no room for tax avoidance and tax evasion.
“While our work on tax crimes initially focused on supporting the FIRS, we took a further step to explore partnerships with sub-national counterparts.
“This expansion was predicated on the recognition that the vast majority of tax evasion happens at the state level.
“Our analysis led us to the conclusion that the data on financial transactions held within the unit would be of tremendous benefit to State Internal Revenue Services as well,” she said.
She charged revenue services to uphold international conventions and standards to protect the integrity of the information that would be provided to them.
“To this end, our approach to working with states is built on the establishment of a Memorandum of Understanding which sets out the principles, objectives and limitations of the intelligence provided.
“We have also developed, using our in-house technical resources, a secure platform for requesting and receiving intelligence from the NFIU, the Crime Records Information Management System (CRIMS).
“Through CRIMS, we have entirely eliminated paper records, which are prone to compromise, and we have robust audit mechanisms to ensure we are aware of who is asking for and who is receiving our intelligence.
“We conduct robust training for the authorised users of the CRIMS platform, which includes understanding the role of the NFIU, the type of information we hold, and the overall intelligence cycle,” the NFIU boss added.
