Juliet Buna
Ondo State Government said it would form a collaboration with some Federal Government revenue generating agencies as part of its efforts to boost its Internally Generated Revenue.
The state Commissioner for Finance, Mr Wale Akinterinwa has earlier revealed that the state has improved on its IGR from annual N6billion of the past administration to over N36billion annually.
According to The PUNCH, the chairman of the Ondo State Internal Revenue Service, Mr Tolu Adegbie, on Thursday confirmed that the government had collaborated with tax stakeholders both at the state and federal level.
In the lecture titled; ‘Bridging income inequality through taxation,’ Adegbie, who was represented by the Senior Special Assistant to the Ondo State Governor on Revenue, Mr Olufemi Feyide, described taxation as a working tool that has brought infrastructural development to the state.
He said, “The money raised either from tax or generated revenue for the past four years is internally generated, it has given the state certainty of funds, we plan and budget for them, looking around the state in the past five years you would see a change of developmental progress, you can see changes in education, roads and many infrastructural, the economic activities in the state has picked up.
” There would be a close and intact collaboration among the relevant tax authorities both at the federal and state levels (FIRS and SIRS).
“Also, there would also be collaborations with major revenue-generating agencies of the Federal Government such as The Nigerian Customs Service, The Nigerian Immigration Service, NNPC, CAC, among others as well as financial institutions through the Central Bank of Nigeria”
“Different people and personalities would have their own data with the use of technology, we have agencies we can draw information from, we have relationships with banks, judiciary, we would conglomerate all information into an engine that would enable us to profile taxpayers.
“We have houses in Akure without addresses. We have been able to set up a committee to identify each of these houses. When the houses have addresses, this would turn up a database for us, we would get names, phone numbers of house owners too,” the ODIRS chairman stated
