The Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Muhammad Nami has said that Nigeria may have lost $178 billion (N5.4 trillion) to tax evasion in ten years by multi-national companies.
As a result of the development, Nami is set to work towards curbing the illicit financial outflow from the country, enforcing tax compliance among multi-nationals in Nigeria.
The FIRS boss made this known during a workshop in Abuja on Effective Audit of Multinational Corporations for Domestic Revenue Mobilisation in Nigeria, noting that “many rich Multinational Corporations do not pay the right taxes due from them, let alone pay their taxes voluntarily.”
“At the FIRS we are paying greater attention to a tax audit in general and Transfer Pricing audit in particular in order to improve the level of tax compliance in the country.
“As a result, in the last one year, we have created more than 35 additional Tax Audit Units and deployed experienced and capable staff to take charge of these offices,” he added.
Nami also urged participants to come up with “a novel methodology that would be used to uncover illicit financial flows” and “provide an overview of related policy options for enhancing tax revenue collection in general.”
Speaking on the recent decline in oil resources, the FIRS boss said “taxation is expected to continue to shoulder the Government’s Budget performance the way it did in 2020.”
“This underscores the importance of this workshop, as tax audit of Multinational Corporations is very crucial in Nigeria’s domestic revenue mobilization.
“For me, this Workshop is an important step towards boosting compliance level; and, I have strong hopes that its outcome will further increase our efforts at driving tax compliance among Multinational Corporations in Nigeria,” Nami added.
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