Tax: FIRS to audit banks, NNPC, MDAs

The Federal Inland Revenue Service, in a bid to ensure that all tax revenues due to the government are collected and remitted into the Federation Account, has begun a tax audit of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

The Executive Chairman, FIRS, Mr. Babatunde Fowler, disclosed this on Thursday in Abuja when members of the Public Accounts Committee of the Senate led by its Chairman, Senator Andy Uba, visited the agency.

Fowler said the audit was being carried out as part of measures aimed at boosting tax revenue in the 2016 fiscal period.

He said apart from the NNPC, the FIRS had received approval from the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, to commence a joint audit of all Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the government.

He said the need for the joint audit arose owing to the fact that the arrangement where government agencies were to deduct Withholding Tax and Value Added Tax from contractors and remit same to the Federation Account had not yielded the desired results.

The audit, the FIRS boss added, had also been extended to all banks operating in the country to ensure that all tax revenues of government were remitted to the Federation Account.

Fowler said, “We have an audit process that we are carrying out with the collecting banks to ensure that revenues received have been swept into our account at the close of 2015; we are about to start another audit process to ensure that remittance still held by other banks have been swept.