The Chairman of Anambra state Internal Revenue Service AIRS, Dr David Nzekwu has said the Internally generated revenue, IGR, of Anambra state has tripled under the Willie Obiano administration
In an interactive session with the media team of the Governor tagged ‘meet the media’ on Thursday, he said the state’s IGR had risen from N8.7bn at the end 2013 to N26bn in 2019.
According to Dr Nzekwu, Anambra state should be earning a lot more from IGR but a lot of people and businesses which ordinarily should be contributing to the IGR of the state were not captured in the tax system and the situation was worsened by irregularities in the sector which led to diminished revenue collection or diversion of IGR to individual pockets by so called revenue agents.
Praising governor, Chief Dr Willie Obiano for his contribution to the sector, he lauded digitization of the tax system for the curbing of the irregularities and the capturing of the informal sector and the businesses therein, into the tax system.
Dr Nzekwu also noted the issuance of the Anambra state social service identification, ANSSID, number to ndi Anambra to enable active participation in the civic responsibility of tax paying
According to him, the Anambra internal revenue service has registered about 40,000 businesses and enrolled about 300,000 people into the tax net. Revenue from this is estimated at N15bn annually, In addition he said that Anambra state launched the state revenue stamp in Nov., 2019 which has given a boost to stamp duty tax in the state and generates revenue of about N20m monthly adding that the deployment of the land information management system for proper identification and profiling of properties had also been put in place with 64 revenue heads already identified in the area.
All these efforts, he claimed, led to the increase of the state IGR from N8.7bn in 2013 to N17bn in 2018. The state’s IGR closed at N26bn in 2019 and the AIRS is targeting N30bn in 2020.
Dr Nzekwu said the AIRS is working closely with ministry of Justice to proffer lasting solutions to the menace of ghost and fake revenue collectors and will engage in massive tax education to enlighten ndi Anambra on the need to pay tax effectively and consistently for the development of Anambra state.
0
0
