From Sola Ojo, Kaduna
KADUNA State government has revealed that the State Internal Revenue Service (KDIRS) was able to generate about N17 billion as Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) in 2016.
Chairman, KDIRS, Muktar Ahmed told journalists in Kaduna that based on 2017 IGR projection, the state may accrued up N50.2 billion IGR in 2017, an average of N4.1 billion monthly everything been equal, quickly added that, N17 billion generated in 2016 represent an increase of about 50 per cent from the N11.5 billion generated in 2015.
The chairman hinged increment in revenue profile of the state to the recent reform in revenue collection, particularly the new tax law that established the KDIRS in March 2016 addng that, the law had among other things harmonised and automated all revenue collection in the state.
“The law has abolished physical collection of cash by any staff of the service. Every tax payer now pays his tax directly in the bank. This has helped in blocking leakages, “he added.
“When we came on board, the monthly collection was hovering from N600 to N900 million, but from the time I took over in January 2016, it keeps going up until it peaked at two billion in December.
“It wen up to 1.6 billion in June and July, and went as high as N2.1 billion in December, but on the average, the monthly collection stood at 1.4 billion.
“This was achieved by not imposing a single tax. In short, the new tax law reduces some tax rates. What we did was to simply improved efficiency in tax collection.
“What was happening in the past was that most of what government is collecting as revenue does not end up in government accounts.
“The process was sloppy and there was a lot of diversion of the resources. The law, therefore closed the gaps, such that only the state revenue service is empowered to collect revenue, “Ahmed said.