The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has disclosed that it generated a total of N2, 529,615,174,601.25 from various taxes from January to June this year.
A statement issued by the Director, Information of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Mr. Hassan Dodo, on the agency’s revenue collections during the period under review indicated that the amount represented 75 percent of the target set for the Service this year and an improvement over what was realized in the corresponding period of last year.
The agency confirmed that the N2,529,615,174,601.25 was higher by N746,107,323,247.26, or 42 percent than the total revenue the agency generated totalling N1,783,507,851,353.99 collected in the corresponding period in 2017.
A further analysis of the total amount indicated that N1,168,627,365,306.67 was collected as Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) as against N636,170,585,753.57, representing a positive variance of N532,456,779,553.10 generated in the half year ended June 2017.
Similarly, the Director stated that the Company Income Tax (CIT) accruals from January to June this year totalled N680,093,730,362.25, which was N128,151,996,465.68 more than the N551,941,733,896.57 in the previous year.
Also, the Value Added Tax (VAT) yielded N536,525,540,228.39 in the period under review, representing N68,841,756,240.06 higher than the N467,683,783,988.33 realized from January to June 2017.
A further breakdown of the revenue profile on source-by-source basis reflected that Education Tax stood at N77,191,051,329.11 compared to the N58,868,372,910.79 in first half of last year, showing an increase of N18,322,678,418.32 while revenue from Stamp Duties was N7,492,592,658.35, which was N2,346,472,953.70 higher than the N5,146,119,704.65 raked in from the tax source in 2017.
The statement also showed that the agency collected N1,006,543,151.07 from Capital Gains Tax (CGT). The amount was N64,916,270.95 higher than the N 941,626,880.12 raked in the corresponding period of 2017 while the Service generated N9,249,618,573.91 from NITDEF, indicating an increase of N736,357,883.29 when compared to the N8,513,260,690.62 collected in the corresponding period of last year.
The Consolidated Tax Revenue for the first six months this year was 49,428,732,991.50, representing N54,242,367,529.34 higher than the N4,813,634,537.84 collected by the FIRS from January to June last year.
The agency expressed optimism that its effort would continue to yield significant results in the remaining half of the current year, particularly in increasing non-oil tax revenue for the current year.