Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Babatunde Fowler, has said that recession and oil price affected tax revenue between 2015 and 2018.
Mr Fowler said this in reply to a memo from the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, about the drop in revenue.
In the letter dated August 8, 2019, Kyari gave Fowler up till August 19 to explain the reasons for poor collections of revenue.
Fowler, however, said that despite the challenges non-oil revenue such as VAT and company income tax have been on the increase compared to pre-2015 figures.
There had been fears that Fowler’s tenure, which allegedly expired on Saturday, would not be renewed following the query issued him by Kyari.
In his response to Kyari obtained by Igbere TV, he said: “The low inflow of oil revenues for the period especially Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) was due to fall in price of crude oil and reduction of crude oil production.”
He added: “The Nigerian economy also went into recession in the second quarter of 2016 which slowed down general economic activities. Tax revenue collection (CIT and VAT) being a function of economic activities were negatively affected but actual collection of the above two taxes were still higher in 2016 to 2018 than in 2012 to 2014.”
Fowler also assured that the agency’s current strategies and initiatives would improve revenue collection and meet the government’s expectations.
The Presidency had in a statement doused tension, saying Fowler was not being probed.
