The Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) has said it will recover an additional N56.6 billion from five states and federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in the ongoing tax liabilities recovery.
The Acting Chairman, Shettimma Abba-Gana, who made the pledge yesterday in Abuja, said the exercise covered between 2005 and 2015 across 30 states of the federation. He said the exercise being carried out by the Commission had already uncovered about N115 billion.
Abba-Gana said that monitoring and auditing are an ongoing exercise meant to discover and recover funds collected and meant for the federation account.
“We always go back to monitor, audit and check if the right tax collected has been remitted. So, we find new taxes that have not been remitted or collected, and it’s good that we are doing this, and are finding uncollected and unremitted revenue.
“The exercise also has another benefit because it will serve as a deterrent to the agencies, tax payers or tax collectors, to be aware that sooner or later RMAFC will come. So, they might as well make sure they have got their books in order,’’ he said, adding that the exercise is expected to bring about an increase in revenue collection and remittance for the government.
Abba-Gana said there are sanctions for delays in the remittance of the revenues but that they will only be applied where it is established that those delays were made on purpose.
“It is not going to be fair to say that some of these things are deliberate. They may be but we have to give benefit of the doubt whether something was forgotten or maybe bureaucracy or wrongful applications or some mistakes have been made.
“They could be acts of deliberate attempts to evade or avoid paying the revenues but it is always better to say there could be mistakes, forgetfulness or misapplication of the rates and things like that.
“So, when issues of deliberate attempts not to remit are found, definitely some agencies like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) would have to be brought in and sanctions would follow from there. There is a charge for delayed remittances but when a major problem is found, the EFCC will have to be brought in,’’ he said.
He also spoke about verification and reconciliation of revenue collections and remittances from collecting banks, on behalf of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).
Abba-Gana said that N6.4 billion was recovered between January 2008 and June 30, 2012, while the second phase that covered July 31, 2012 to December 31, 2015 recovered N40 billion.
