By Sarah NEGEDU
The Federal Capital Territory Internal Revenue Service, FCT-IRS, is looking to collaborate with the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission, EFCC, in collection of personal income tax from owners of properties forfeited to the federal government.
The Acting Executive Chairman of the Service, Michael Ango, during a courtesy visit to the Executive Chairman of the EFCC, Olanipekun Olukoyede, said the move was necessary in tackling tax liability of suspects being investigated for any form of economic and financial crime or other acts of corruption.
Ango noted that most suspects
being investigated by EFCC for financial crimes were not tax compliant, stressing that it would helpful if such persons were interrogated as to their tax status and required to fulfil their tax obligations as part of the investigation process.
He said the partnership was important because of the statutory roles of both agencies, adding that the engagement with the EFCC was in line with mandate of the FCT-IRS to collaborate with agencies, such as the EFCC, towards improving tax compliance in the FCT.
In this regard, Ango stated that the FCT-IRS would need EFCC’s help in the areas of involvement of FCT-IRS in ascertaining the tax status of individuals and entities under the Commission’s investigation, to facilitate the collection of personal income tax from owners of forfeited properties, and tracing of high net worth individuals and bringing them under the FCT tax net.
“One of the things I want to explore, Mr. Chairman is to say that whenever you have obtained a forfeiture order, we want to find out if it is possible to say ‘FCT-IRS come and tell us the compliance status of this person or this company if they have paid or not. And I am talking of personal income tax. If an individual is forfeiting X amount to the federal government, Mr. Chairman, we want to assess such a person on tax and ensure that he or she has paid taxes before the rest of it is forfeited to the federal government. Likewise for corporate entities to know if they have personal income tax obligations which they are not discharged.
“The second aspect is that even when suspects are investigated, whether they are charged to court or not, we are interested in knowing their compliance status because if the person was not found culpable for the actual offence that he or she was arrested for, it is possible that such a person may not have paid his taxes. So if he escapes from one door, we want to make sure that we can catch him or her through the second door, which is tax compliance.
“The third issue which we have done significantly well with NFIU, is the issue of HNIs (High Net worth Individuals).”
The FCT-IRS boss also noted that one of the major initiatives of the FCT-IRS in 2025 is the harmonisation of revenue
collection and administration in the FCT and to achieve this, the support and collaboration of all person and agencies such as the EFCC would be required.
This is to ensure that all revenue due to the FCT is collected and accounted for in a transparent manner and to enhance ease of doing business and improve revenue generation.
Ango also condoled with the EFCC on the recent
lose of its operative and commended the Executive Chairman for the excellent work he and the Commission have been doing to tackle financial crimes in the country since he assumed duty as Chief Executive of the Commission.
In his remarks, the EFCC Executive Chairman,
Mr. Olanipekun Olukoyede thanked the FCT-IRS chairman and his team for the visit and expressed willingness to partner with the Service to improve revenue collection in the FCT.
Olukoyede said the Commission is in partnership with the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, and other State Internal Revenue Services and therefore would be willing to partner with the FCT-IRS to shore up its collections.
He noted the need to have a Memorandum of
Understanding, MoU, to highlight the specific areas of collaboration pointing out that such would further strengthen the relationship between the two organisations.
