The Kaduna State Internal Revenue Service has said that it will employ social media platform WhatsApp and the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data service to improve less efficient methods of tax payment.
The News Agency of Nigeria reported that during a public-private discussion on a revenue-generation push on Wednesday, the executive chairman of the state revenue service agency, Dr. Zaid Abubakar, made this information known.
The discussion was organized by the Tax Justice and Governance Platform, a civil society organization working with KADIRS and receiving funding from Christian Aid.
He stated that the platform WhatsApp, which is mostly used for social interactions, will relieve taxpayers of the hardships associated with visiting banks and other designated officers to pay their taxes.
He explained that when the WhatsApp platform is used for tax payments, each taxpayer will receive a reference number that has already been charged to their account.
Additionally, he said that the USSD will make it quicker and simpler for taxpayers to access mobile banking without cellphones or a data or internet connection by using specially created codes.
He mentioned that USSD-based mobile banking may be used, among other things, for bank statement generation, fund transfers, and checking account balances.
“Before the end of this quarter, we would introduce this technology, he promised.
The state coordinator for TJ&GP, Simeon Olatunde, had earlier stated that the dialogue’s goal was to improve ties between the organization, Tax Justice Network, and other revenue-generating organizations.
He continued by saying that it was also done to motivate stakeholders to support tax payments and encourage voluntary tax compliance.
Olatunde added that it was important to have a fundamental grasp of the duties civil society organizations have in educating taxpayers about the importance of voluntarily complying with tax remittance requirements.
The Kaduna Government had improved in its effort to generate revenue, he said, but it had not yet reached the level that had been widely anticipated.
He stated that people were preventing the government from providing them with the appropriate social services when they refused to pay or evaded tax, which is a basic obligation.
He urged tax payers to be steadfast in their commitment to paying their taxes, saying that doing so would grant them the right to request information about how their money was used.
The plenary session on strengthening collaboration with various revenue-generating agencies and professional organisations for a fair and equitable tax system was the event’s high point.
The National Union of Road Transport Workers, the Association of Private School Owners, and the Association of Persons with Disabilities were among the organizations present.
