The Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Muhammad Nami, has disclosed that the FIRS has grown revenues from Stamp Duties by over 1,000 per cent, totaling N66 billion in the first five months of 2020 alone, compared with N6 billion collected from January to May 2019.
He attributed this increase to the dynamism triggered by the Finance Act 2019, sums warehoused by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in respect of prior years, and the deployment of technology and stakeholders’ collaboration.
According to him, “The introduction of the FIRS Stamp Duties Adhesive Stamp will, among other things, plug the revenue sink-hole; enable proper accountability and transparency; simplify the administration of Stamp Duties; and reduce disputes.”
Nami was speaking at the inauguration of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Audit and Recovery of Back Years Stamp Duties and the Launch of the FIRS Adhesive Stamp.
The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, who represented President Muhammadu Buhari at the event said that stamp duty would be second to oil in revenue generation soon.
“In the face of dwindling oil revenue, and the global shift away from oil-dependent technological products, it is even more compelling now to begin to think out of the box in order to safeguard the future of our country. Therefore, this administration has resolved to widen the revenue base by activating stamp duties revenue collection which has been neglected for more than 20 years,” Mustapha said.
Mustapha directed that all relevant MDAs, particularly the Central Bank of Nigeria, NIBBS, MDBs, FIRS, NIPOST should give maximum cooperation to the Committee in the discharge of its mandate.
In order to ensure transparency and accountability in the recovery of back year stamp duty, the President, he said, directed that all recoveries made by the Committee be remitted to appropriate stamp duty account maintained by FGN with the Central Bank of Nigeria.