Politico Politico News
President Muhammadu Buhar has queried the Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS), Babatunde Fowler through his Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari.
It was gathered that the query was based on serial poor revenue collections and he was asked to reply on Monday August 19.
Fowler, a former chairman of the Lagos Inland Revenue Services was recommended for the position by All Progressives Congress (APC) leader, Bola Tinubu.
Titled; “RE: Budgeted FIRS Collections and actual collections”, the presidency is seeking explanation of what it suggested was insufficient tax collected between 2015 and 2018.
It reads; “Your attached letter (FIRS/EC/ECW/0249/19/027 dated 26 July 2019) on the above subject matter refers.
“We observed significant variances between the budgeted collections and actual collections for the period 2015 to 2018.
“Accordingly, you are kindly invited to submit a comprehensive variance analysis explaining the reasons for the variances between budgeted and actual collections for each main tax item for each of the years 2015 to 2018.
“Further more, we observed that the actual collections for the period 2015 to 2017 were significantly lower worse than what was collected between 2012 and 2014. Accordingly, you are kindly to explain the reason for the poor collections.
“You are kindly invited to respond by 19 August 2019.”
In April, FIRS was enmeshed in alleged fraud.
