It was at the occasion of the Abuja day at the 17 the Abuja international trade fair, holding at the trade and convention centre, airport road Abuja, Dr. Dick Iri spoke with news men at the event. Excerpt;

1 May we meet you sir?

My name is Dr. Dick Iri, I am the Coordinating Director the Compliance Support

Group of Federal Inland Revenue Service

2 How do you describe the trade Fair so far, especially your day today?

It was great, it was wonderful especially the attendance was overwhelming and

we have use this opportunity to educate slot of taxpayers on what FIRS does and

how they can also be good citizens of this country.

3 Let us look at the volume of the customers that visited your staff, is it

encouraging?

Well from what I saw from the attendance register, it is encouraging compared to

last year

4 Which Area do you think the FIRS should improve on by the next trade Fair

which is holding next year?

I want the FIRS to improve in the area of publicity, slot of people are not aware

especially in corporate entities, am not sure they are aware they should do more

about the publicity about the trade Fair.

Hajiya Saiadatu Yero, Director Taxpayer Service Department of FIRS on her

paper presentation .

Revenue from oil which use to be the best source of government revenue is quite

depleting and this have force the need for sustainable ways for getting

government revenue for developmental needs of the citizen, it is diplomatic to

know that the service has achieve a historical mines of achievement in collection

of 3.4trillion to government in the year 2021 despite the challenges faced by

government , this was made possible by the various reforms produced by the

executive chairman and the management team of Federal Inland revenue service.

Revenue from taxes has been a very sustainable source of revenue for various

government developmental projects such as providing hospitals schools airport

railway infrastructure etc .The federal government has increased the federal

Inland revenue Target in 2022 to 10.3 trillion by giving you the assurance that

before the end of December taxes collected will be able to serve as a major

revenue for the government.

What is tax? Tax is a compulsory levy imposed by government on income capital

or consumption of the citizen for the purpose of raising revenue to provide basic

essential activities and services for the entire citizen of the country. We have

various tax administration in the country and we have three main tax

administration in the country namely

1Federal Inland Revenue Service

2 Statehood of Internal revenue

3 Local government revenue authorities

We also have taxes that are collected and are backed by law, that is supposed to be

collected by federal inland revenue taxes, some of the taxes that the FIRS do

collect are

Company Income tax

Petroleum products tax

Capital gain tax

National information technology etc

Some of the taxes collected by Statehood are personal income tax, direct

assessment, withholding tax of individual ,stamp duties in respect of individual

transaction etc

Local government authorities collect tax such as tenement rates

Our focus is not only to be collecting taxes, you also have your right and

obligation .

Some of the right and obligation of a taxpayer is for him to be informed and

assisted, we have a taxpayers service department. The purpose of setting those

units are to be able to assist the taxpayers whenever the need arises.

Taxpayers have the right to be given tax identification number, the tax

identification number is free you are not required to pay anything, if any staff

request for any dime from you, you are supposed to report that person.

You have the right to assessment

You have the right to be issued a tax clearance certificate

You have the right to proper identification of staff

The service have also launched the contact center for request and complaint and

we also have a number you can call to make your request and complains and also

you can make your inquiry in different languages both local and foreign languages.

In order to make tax payment so easy Federal Inland Revenue has offices in

different places that are very close to the taxpayer.

In conclusion taxation plays a crucial role in national economic activities to

national development.