By Emman Ovuakporie & Johnbosco Agbakwuru

ABUJA—SOME of the 36 states of the federation that failed to remit taxes to the Federal Government in the past five years may face stiff sanctions, including forfeiture of their monthly federation allocations.

The un-remitted taxes, according to the Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Services, FIRS, Babatunde Fowler, were collected on behalf of FIRS.

The FIRS boss, who dropped the hint  at the Investigative public hearing on ‘FIRS accounting procedure,’ conducted by the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee on FIRS Accounting Procedure, chaired by Michael Enyong Okon, who represents Uyo/Uruan/Nsit Atai/Ibesikpo Asutan Federal Constituency, of Akwa Ibom State.

According to Fowler, less than 20 percent of the taxes (Value Added Tax, Withholding Tax and CIT) collected by the affected states were accounted for.
He added that a lot of states that never remitted taxes were yet benefitting from monthly federal allocation.

He noted that plans were underway to bring at least 20 million of the 27.5 million SMEs operating in the country into the tax net, adding that the Joint Tax Board meeting held recently in Kano State also resolved to increase the tax payers at the state level from 10 million to 20 million into the tax net by May 2016.
Fowler disclosed that 363,000 tax payers have so far been captured in the tax net since he assumed office, adding that from May 2, 2016, all federal ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs, would begin to remit appropriate taxes, including VAT and WHT deducted from payment to contractors into the Consolidated Revenue Fund, CRF.

He said plans had been concluded to shore-up the country’s revenue by raising the tax base of companies operating in Nigeria from N10 million to N20 million by the end of 2016 fiscal year.