The newly appointed acting Chairman of the Benue State Board of Internal Revenue Service (BIRS), Andrew Ayabam has promised to deploy new technologies in addition to working with the people in order to raise the revenue base of the state.
He spoke at the Benue Peoples House Makurdi shortly after he was announced the new BIRS Acting Chairman by Governor Samuel Ortom.
Ayabam stated that greater emphasis would be placed on growing the revenue base of the state which he noted had dwindled in the last three years.
He stated that through taxpayers education, real time/electronic collection and reporting of revenue as well as working with the people, improvement would be recorded in the revenue base of the state.
Ayabam, who held sway as BIRS Chairman during Gabriel Suswam’s time as Governor, said the Board might engage the services of consultants but not as revenue collecting agents, stressing that a revenue collection agency should not outsource its main activity to anybody under any circumstances, as doing so is contrary to the law.
He stated that more hands would be needed to drive the revenue generation and collection process in the state to achieve the desired result.
Andrew Ayabam had since assumed office at the Board’s headquarters in Makurdi. He earlier in the day received handover from his predecessor, Terzungwe Atser.
The chairman has alo ordered that all tax consultants with the Service must be tax complaint within 7 days. He frowned at the situation where tax administrators are not tax compliant.
Ayabam also warned against forged tax clearance certificates, which he said if discovered will be handed over to the appropriate law enforcement agencies. He warned all consultants against payment of tax into personal or company accounts.
He stressed that all tax payments must be made directly into the state government accounts for easy accountability while assuring that the consultants will be paid their agreed percentages every first week of the month.
Meanwhile, Ayabam has also instructed all tax consultants who are yet to do their full remittance, to pay up before 23rd July, 2019 or face termination.
