FIRS collecting taxes earlier in the middle of a pandemic. The Federal Inland Revenue Services through the office of its Executive Chairman issued a statement urging business owners to begin fulfilling their tax obligations before time. According to the statement, the mandate is only for sectors experiencing boom in this pandemic. Although the statement reiterated the FIRS’s concern for the difficulties Nigerians and their businesses are facing this time, the sectors experiencing boom were exempted from the concern.
Business operations such as supermarkets, Telcos, Financial Institutions, e-Commerce businesses, manufactures and processors of certain products and others wee included in the sectors experiencing the boom. They were advised to go the extra mile in cooperating with the FIRS and possibly begin remitting their annual returns now.
The statement also read that this move is to make up for the gap created in government revenue so as to avoid any strain in budget funding.
So, in layman terms, the FIRS is asking businesses who they assumed are making extra gains in this pandemic to pay up their taxes and in advance too. The reason for this is to maintain the government revenue and avoid strain in budget funding. Although this may sound as a smart move to keep the economy running, one would need to ask if the budget is not supposed to be reviewed. Prior to the pandemic, the country’s budget was mainly funded by revenue from sale of crude oil. And with the crash in international oil prices, shouldn’t the budget be reviewed and new priority expenditures set?
More so, the businesses expected to be making more profit this season are also operating at a higher cost, hazard fees and all. Shouldn’t the extra profit made be used to cushion the effect of this pandemic for these businesses while the government reviews its expenditures?
This comes off to the public as the government more interested in maintaining its elaborate running cost at the expense of grass-root business owners and individuals. What does this mean to you?
FIRS Collecting Taxes Earlier in the Middle of a Pandemic