As part of its staff expansion plan, the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) has said that it will recruit about 1,250 persons across the states immediately after the budget has been assented to by the President .
This was disclosed yesterday by the executive chairman of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Babatunde Fowler while appearing before the Senate committee on Finance at the National Assembly.
The executive chairman said, “Basically what we are discussing is 2016 budget. And within the budget, we do have provision for recruitment of staff in terms of staff expansion; and in total we are expected to recruit about 1,250 and we have not started and that process will start once the budget have been approved.”
Mr Fowler, however lamented non payment of tax by Nigerians, saying only ten per cent of Nigerians pay their tax.
“We were in Kano, earlier this week and the Emir spoke to all Muslims that payment of tax that is not against Islam. But we have people in different languages with different ideas and as a tax body we have to make sure that we can educate everyone . We have running jingles in all major languages in Igbo, Yoruba Hausa, Pidgin English and once we sensitise the public and you understands what needs to be done, then you can start enforcement or start expecting people to pay tax; that is the media campaign.”
By the grace of God and with your support , we will meet our target. With the economic crunch, the issue is that I can tell you certain information which maybe to start with, the honest truth is that when it comes to payment of VAT less than 10 percent in terms of numbers actually are remitting on VAT. If those people who are benefiting from Nigeria and actually have the love for Nigeria ,they can do the right thing by paying their taxes because in paying taxes ,you are empowering government to provide service. We intend to make sure that we get at least a 90 per cent compliance over the last few months we have added over 362, 000 new tax payers and then our job is just to make sure that we enforce payment”