Twitter tax, others raise FIRS 2022 revenue target to N10.1tn

The registration of Twitter and other social media as business entities in Nigeria has raised the projected revenue of the Federal Inland Revenue Service for 2022 to N10.1 trillion.

Chairman of the FIRS, Mohammed Nami, stated this on Wednesday when he appeared before the House of Representatives committee on finance in Abuja.

He said N2.053 trillion would go the Federal Government while state and local governments would have the rest funds.

He said the projected revenue for 2022 was above that of 2021 because of the registration of social media platforms, including Twitter.

“The total collection that we are trying to generate and remit to the appropriate accounts, including the federation account in 2022, is N10.1 trillion,” he said.

“On the issue of the digital economy, your suggestions are noted, we also have them as part of what we are doing because we already have a department called the international tax department that is handling those cases,” he said.

He also said, “Twitter and others are already registering with us, so we are aware. So we expect that the impact of those registrations would be felt positively by the FIRS and that is why the targets are going up.”

Nami also spoke on the 2020 budget performance, saying the FIRS collected a total of N4.950 trillion against the budgeted N5.076tn.

“The service achieved a total revenue collection of N4.950 trillion against budgeted N5.076 trillion, representing 98 per cent,” he added.

“Out of the total collection, non-oil and oil components contributed N3.435 trillion and N1.515 trillion respectively.

“Consequently, the cost of collection (four per cent net of two per cent Nigeria Customs Service VAT) of N130.45 billion was achieved against the budget of N180.76 billion to fund the three operational expenditure heads for the year,” he said.

Reviewing the 2021 budget performance, Nami said the FIRS had achieved 43 per cent of the projected revenue as of June.

“The service 2021 approved MTEF projected revenue collection was N6.40 trillion representing N1.64 trillion (26 percent) and N4.76 trillion (74 per cent) for oil and non-oil respectively,” he said.

Nami also said, “The service as of June 30, 2021 (half-year) achieved N2.762 trillion representing 43% of approved projected revenue collection. The non-oil revenue collection during the period was N2.118 trillion against N1.5 trillion collected in the corresponding period representing 41.2 per cent increase.

“While the oil revenue collected for the same period was N644 billion against N971 billion collected in the corresponding period representing 33.68 percent decrease in the oil.”