Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), on Thursday, announced that it generated N1.1 trillion during the first quarter of 2020.
In a statement from Director, Communications and Liaison Department Abdullahi Ismaila Ahmad, FIRS said the figure was a seven per cent increase over N1.04 trillion it recorded for the same period of 2019 despite all the turbulence experienced since the beginning of 2020.
According to Ahmad, a major improvement area is capital gains tax, which yielded 568% improvement from N96,408,740.90 in Q1 2019 to N643,935,849.06 in Q1 2020.
Similarly, the Service recorded a 522% increase in the collection from the NITDEF to bag N690,532,855.85 in Q12020, compared to N111,037,797.16 in Q1 2019
Since taking the mantle of leadership at the FIRS, Mr Nami has instituted a regime of policy reforms anchored on the deployment of Information Communication Technology (ICT) to block tax leaks and motivated members of staff at the FIRS by restoring a number of their statutory roles hitherto outsourced to private consultants back to the staff.
Also in the period under review, Gas Income Tax increased by 286% in Q12020, which amounted to N11,491,627,575.89 compared to N2,977,345,332.31 raked in in Q12020
Similarly, Company Income Tax (CIT) collected in Q1 2020 jumped 135% to N95,733,194,644.91 from the corresponding figure of N40,696,980,658.52 recorded in Q1 2019.
Stamp Duty collection in Q12020 is N4,602,037,497.81, a 36% increase to the Q12019 figure of N3,386,648,663.85
In the education sector, the FIRS recorded an 81% increase in its collection of Education Tax, N13,102,045,604.74 in Q12020 compared to N7,229,644,397.68 in Q12019.
Both NCS and Non-Import VAT also increased by 11% in Q12020 N63,296,684,819.79 and N261,245,617,218.98 respectively from the Q12019 figures of N57,008,866,617.53 and N236,030,481,054.83 in that order.
However, Petroleum Income Tax, Withholding Tax and Personal Income Tax all took a deep in the period under review, a development tax analysts attributed to fluctuations in the price of crude oil in the international market as well as the interregnum witnessed between passing the 2019 Finance Act into law and its coming to effect on February 1, 2020.
