The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has partnered with the Market Traders Association of Nigeria (MATAN) to collect and remit Value Added Tax (VAT) to the FIRS from the country’s markets, especially in the informal sector.
The Association which has a membership of well over 40 million traders across the country’s 774 local governments, and 36 States plus the Federal Capital Territory is the biggest player in Nigeria’s market space.
Special Assistant Media & Communication to the FIRS Executive Chairman, Johannes Oluwatobi Wojuola, in a statement saiddetails of the FIRS’ partnership with the traders were disclosed Wednesday at a Stakeholders Engagement Programme on the VAT DIRECT Initiative, held in Lagos State.
The partnership will see the Service collaborating with the association to deploy technology to enumerate traders for collecting and remitting VAT to the Service, consequently leading to an expansion of the tax net and increased revenue for the Federation.
The VAT DIRECT Initiative (VDI) is a program designed to foster collaboration between the FIRS and the market place, especially the informal sector, in the collection and remittance of the Value Added Tax (VAT) using technology.
Speaking during the Stakeholder Engagement, Executive Chairman FIRS Mr. Muhammad Nami, highlighted that the initiative was the first of its kind, and that it was crucial to revenue generation and also to eliminating multiple taxation, especially from the informal sector.
Nami, who is also the Chairman of the Joint Tax Board (JTB) further stated that the government is worried about the multiplicity of taxes, and that the Service and JTB were working on various modalities of addressing this challenge and that this partnership has laid a very good foundation for the government to address the issue of multiple taxation and extortion by tax officials, tax agents and touts in the market place.
He further noted that the Service would collaborate with security agencies, especially the Nigeria Police, to deal with illegal tax collection by touts in markets.
“One important area of our collaboration is the issue of providing adequate security in the markets. We are aware of the challenges that you have faced in the past with miscreants, self-imposed tax collection agents, and touts.