House plans probe of FIRS N89bn deduction

The House of Representatives on Tuesday expressed doubts over the accounting procedure of the Federal Inland Revenue Service and resolved to probe the N89bn the agency kept to itself as operational cost yearly.
The House observed that the money was calculated as four per cent of the overall non-oil taxes the agency collected on behalf of government.
“There might be irregularities in the accounting procedure and calculations of the 4 per cent of the non-oil taxes the service is empowered to retain as operational costs,” the House resolution stated on Tuesday.
The session, which was presided over by the Speaker, Mr Yakubu Dogara, heard a motion on the FIRS moved by a lawmaker from Kwara State, Abubakar Kannike.
He informed the House that in 2014, the figure of non-oil taxes given by the agency was N2.24tr, “four per cent of which amounted to N89bn, was presumably retained as operational costs by the service for that year.”
Kannike added that the total revenue generated by FIRS in 2014 was N4.69tr.

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For 2015, the lawmaker said the agency had generated N1.842tr from January to June.
However, he called for an investigation into the procedure used by the FIRS in calculating its four per cent deductions on non-oil revenue as it could be “faulty.”
“Given the fact that the country has been experiencing dwindling revenue earnings from the sale of crude oil due to the weakening global demand and fall in oil prices, a product which the country depends on, there in the need to ensure transparency, accountability and due diligence in the management of the country’s revenue, to rekindle hope in Nigeria’s creditors about her fiscal capacity to address her macro-economic concerns,” the House resolved.
The motion was passed in a unanimous voice vote by lawmakers.