The Edo State Internal Revenue Service (EIRS) on Monday said the state’s monthly Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) now stands at N2.8billion in the first quarter of 2021 compared to N1.6billion in 2017.
Igbinidu Inneh, executive chairman of EIRS made the disclosure in a paper titled, “Taxation, rule of law and voluntary compliance: role of the Nigerian Bar Association,” presented during the 2021 Nigerian Bar Association law week in Benin City.
Inneh noted that following the utilization of big data in optimizing tax administration, the individual data capture of taxpayers has increased from 160,000 in 2017 to 519,543 as of May 2021, placing Edo second behind Lagos State in the total number of taxpayers with Tax Identification Number (TIN).
The increase, according to him, was achieved through the use of “innovative approaches to reform the system so as to ensure value for money, drive enlightenment and social inclusion, deploy novel technology, guarantee a conducive legal and regulatory environment, prioritize the use of data and develop requisite human capacity to drive the new system.”
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The EIR’s chairman added that “in an effort to clean up the tax data, the service had to contend with massive leakage of revenues arising from non-collection and suppression of cash collections by appointed collectors across the state as well as illegal collections and inefficient collection system.
Continuing, he said “our individual data capture has grown from 160,000 in 2017 to 519,453. Edo ranks 2nd behind Lagos in the total number of taxpayers with a tax identification number (TIN).
“The Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) in the state has grown from pre-2017 Five Year Monthly Average of N1.6 billion to Q1 2021 monthly average of N2.8 billion”.
