The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has announced a total tax revenue collection of N5.5 trillion for the half-year period of January to June 2023.
Executive Chairman of the FIRS, Muhammad Nami, disclosed this while presenting the 2023-2024 tax revenue outlook to the National Economic Council (NEC) at its meeting held on Thursday 20th July 2023, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
This is the highest tax revenue collection ever recorded by FIRS in any first six months of a fiscal year.
The presentation, which contained FIRS’ 2023 Half-Year Collection Report, showed that it achieved over one hundred percent of its target for the first half of the year when compared with a mid-year target of N5.3 trillion.
The report stated that revenue collected from the oil sector from January to June 2023, stood at N2.03 trillion, as against a target of N2.3 trillion; while non-oil tax collection stood at N3.76 trillion, as against a target of N2.98 trillion.
Nami stated that the Service collected a total of N1.65 trillion tax revenues in June 2023. This sum is the highest tax revenue collected by the Service in any single month.
He attributed the excellent performance to improved voluntary tax compliance enabled by the automation of FIRS’ tax administrative processes.
“This is a good head start as we work towards meeting our target for the year. And it was achieved despite stubborn headwinds such as the impact of the currency redesign and 2023 General Elections on the economy in the first and second quarters of 2023.
“This half-year performance was achieved as a result of improved voluntary tax compliance by taxpayers, the continued improvement of automation of our tax administration processes, including the updated VAT filing processes; as well as our dogged engagement with stakeholders in both the formal and informal sectors of the economy.”
Commenting on the outlook for the remainder half of the year, Nami assured that the country should expect better days ahead in terms of tax revenue collection.
He said he believe that the performance in the second half of the year would be better considering the continuing improvement to the tax administration processes and positive impact of current government’s policies on the economy.
