FIRS mandated evidence of tax payment before application of International Passport

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has said that Nigerians will be required to show their evidence of tax payment before applying for international passports or its renewal soon.

FIRS boss, Tunde Fowler disclosed this at the 136th meeting of the joint tax board, held in Abuja on Monday. The theme of the meeting was

“Increased Inter-Agency Cooperation to Enhance Tax Compliance and Optimise Revenue Collection”.

The meeting had in attendance top officials from various government agencies ranging from CBN, FRSC, Customs, Immigration, Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) and the Ministry of Finance among other. The FIRS chairman said, “We did take a position and I believe it would be implemented in the very near future that before you get any services from the immigration department — renewal of passports etc — you’d have to show that you are a tax payer.

“These things are normal all over the world, in an effort to serve Nigerians and Nigeria better. People believe that payment of tax is a burden and I’ll repeat that you only pay tax on income and profits. “So if you reside in Nigeria and you are benefiting from being a Nigerian resident, it is only fair that you contribute to the system that makes you enjoy that standard of living”, he said.

He commended other agencies in the business of generating revenue for the government via tax with their level of cooperation which has yielded positive results for the country. In his words, “I’m glad that with our co-operation, we’ve been able to attain 30 per cent of that. We’ve been able to get three million individual taxpayers across the nation,” he said.

“I’d like to congratulate Kano state for leading the pack by increasing the database by 944,000 followed by Lagos with 306,000 then Kaduna and Plateau.” In his contributions, a representative of the Nigeria Port Authority (NPA), explained the problems faced by the agency especially in the area of fake documentation at the Ports.

He said ” if we can strengthen inter-agency collaboration, we will get more results now that the focus is on IGR”. In like manner, the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) boss, Boboye Oyeyemi, decried the challenge of vehicles owners going through the back door to obtain invalid driver’s license at a cheap price thereby evading the real cost of valid driver’s license which in turn has effect on IGR. He also stated that the FRSC was being owed N700 million for number plates production.