The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) on Monday said it created 35 additional tax audit units last year to frontally tackle illicit financial flow out of Nigeria and improve tax compliance rate in the country.
Its Executive Chairman, Mr. Muhammad Nami, disclosed this in Abuja on Monday in his opening remarks at a workshop on Effective Audit of Multinational Corporations for Domestic Revenue Mobilisation in Nigeria, organized by the service in conjunction with the Tax Justice Network.
Although Nami observed that some multinational corporations were leading in tax compliance in various sectors, he, however, expressed worries that many rich multinational corporations do not pay the right taxes due from them, let alone pay their taxes voluntarily.
Charging the workshop to come up with a novel methodology that would be used to uncover illicit financial flows and provide an overview of related policy options for enhancing tax revenue collection in general,
Nami also disclosed that between 2007 and 2017, Nigeria was reported to have lost over US$178 billion (about N5.4 trillion at today’s rate) through tax evasion by multinationals doing business in the country.
He also cited a 2014 report by the High-Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa, which stated that Nigeria accounted for 30.5 per cent of money lost by the continent through illicit financial flows.
