By Egufe Yafuborghi & Chioma Onuegbu

Akwa Ibom State government has expressed the hope that the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) for 2024 would surpass the target set for the year.

The executive Chairman of Akwa Ibom State Internal Revenue Service (AKIRS), Mr. Okon Okon, stated this on Sunday while briefing newsmen on the outcomes of a two-day strategy session for 2025 fiscal year.

  Okon, who attributed the steady and impressive growth in the state’s IGR over past six years to significant governance reforms by the State Government, among others, thanked Governor, Umo Eno for his supports and avowed commitment to create a friendly tax environment capable of promoting ease of doing business and devoid of multiple taxation.

  His words, “Our State’s IGR rose from N34.75 billion in 2022 to N43.18 billion in 2023 under the administration of Governor Umo Eno, as shown in the figures released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and Joint Tax Board (JTB), the apex body for tax authorities and final authority for reporting tax revenues in Nigeria.

.  “It is on record that Akwa Ibom State ranked among top 10 in IGR performance in Nigeria in 2023, coming 4th among the nine States of the Niger Delta in the recently released ranking published by the NBS.

  “Our IGR trend shows significant and steady growth, with about 170 percent increase over the past six years, rising from N15.96 billion in 2017 to N43.18 billion in 2023.

  “This impressive growth is attributable to significant governance reforms by the State Government, improvement in corporate governance, and operational processes by the Board and the business-enabling environment created by the administration of Governor Umo Eno.

  “By the grace of God, our IGR outlook for 2024  is very impressive and likely to surpass the set target for the year. AKIRS is also prepared to adapt to changes in the tax system when the proposed reforms in tax and fiscal measures come through”

Adding, Okon announced that AKIRS would be speeding up its digitalization programme in 2024 by further expanding the automation of  processes and deepening data-driven initiatives, stressing that the idea was to significantly improve their operational efficiency and increase the State’s IGR without increasing any tax rate.

 “We are confident that without increasing any tax rate, the IGR of our State would be improved via the application of technology, increased tax awareness campaign, and the expansion of the tax net to capture tax evaders.

“Therefore, our focus for the next fiscal year would be to transform our processes from a semi-manual system to full automation. We intend to achieve an end-to-end automation of all our tax processes. This was the outcome of the two days strategy session, which ended yesterday.

  “AKIRS plans to roll-out electronic assessment, e-tax clearance process, e-filing of tax returns, automation of registration, collection and reporting processes with the ultimate aim of enhancing efficiency in revenue collection, taxpayers’ experience and minimization of human interference”, Okon stated

 He assured taxpayers that in efforts to consistently improve on the State’s IGR, they would be cautious not to embark on any initiative that would stiffle business growth or overburden individual taxpayers,  but would align with the impressive and favourable disposition of the Governor towards promoting SMEs, entrepreneurship and enabling businesses environment.