Nigeria Losing About N5.5tn To Tax Evasion Annually- Fowler

The Executive Chairman, Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service, ,FIRS, Babatunde Fowler, ,says that Nigeria loses over five trillion naira to tax evasion annually.

Fowler made the revelation on Wednesday  in Abuja while declaring open a seminar by the West Africa Tax Administration Forum (WATAF) on “Exchange of Information’’ as a tool to combat offshore tax evasion, especially in the ECOWAS sub-region.                     

The three-day seminar was organised by WATAF in collaboration with Global Forum on Transparency. The aim was to deepen the capacities of Tax Administrators from the ECOWAS sub-region in the mechanisms of exchange of information on taxation.

He said,  “Nigeria loses about 14 billion dollars annually if you look at the major economies, especially those in the extractive industry, South Africa, Ghana and Nigeria.

“They form bulk of the transactions, so one can safely assume that Nigeria may be losing between 14 billion dollars to 15 billion dollars annually to tax evasion,.’

He noted that the increasing mobility of income and assets had created a major challenge for tax administrators in the sub-region. This, he said, was especially so because several information leaks released in the past years had unveiled the depth and breadth of the challenge.

According to him, this shows that a vast amount of money is being kept offshore and therefore, can go untaxed. He, however, said that governments around the world were joining efforts to address the challenge.

 The FIRS boss said efforts were also being made to offer a global response to issues of international tax avoidance, tax evasion, illicit financial flows, money laundering and other harmful tax practices, using advanced technology.

Fowler said Nigeria on its part had demonstrated a commitment to improving transparency around tax matters with the signing of a declaration as well as joining the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement, MCCA),on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information in 2017.

Fowler said to facilitate the process of implementing the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information under the Common Reporting Standard CRS, Nigeria had taken steps to ensure its full implementation.

To this end, Fowler urged countries in the ECOWAS sub-region that had not committed to implementing the AEQI standard to take necessary steps to do so.

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