The Kwara State Internal Revenue Service (KW-IRS) on Tuesday announced that it generated N9,598,504,939.90 in the first quarter of 2021.
The agency credited the feat to its increased adoption of technology and steady blockage of leakages within the tax administration system.
The figure is the highest ever collected by the agency without any extraordinary item at any quarter since its founding in 2016.
Addressing newsmen in Ilorin, the state capital, the agency’s executive chairman, Shade Omoniyi also explained that the drop in revenue generation in 2020 was expected because of the Covid-19 restrictions, Kwara’s uncompromising adherence to tax break and waivers for businesses during the period and the fact of its operations being majorly manual as at last year.
She said the huge manual nature of its operations as of last year meant that its staff were unable to move around to collect taxes as Covid-19 hit harder.
Omoniyi said the feat was recorded without any new raise in the tax rate, even as the agency made deliberate steps to tackle multiple taxation.
According to her, Kwara State Internal Revenue Service (KW-IRS) since inception has operated a manual tax administration system.
“This means assessment and collection of relevant taxes payable to the State Government from both KW-IRS and other MDAs are on contact basis. Despite this, the Service has recorded steady IGR growth over the years. Upon its assumption of office in October 2019, the Service’s new management began working tirelessly to sustain this momentum. These efforts culminated in the IGR growth from N23billion as at September 30 to N30.7billion as at the end of the year, 2019”, she said.
Omoniyi explained further that the Service did not rest on its oars as various revenue and cost-cutting initiatives were immediately implemented to shore up the State IGR while it worked assiduously to automate its revenue and tax administration processes.
She stated further that the various revenue leakage blockages paid off when in quarter one of 2020, the Service generated N7billion but added that however, with the spread of the Coronavirus and subsequent lockdown of the State by the government towards the end of March and up until May, the State IGR plummeted to N2billion.
“Given that the state’s economy was greatly affected by the lockdown and the State’s collection system was still contact-based as at this time, it was only to be expected that no serious activities would happen in the revenue space for that period”, she added.
Adherence to Covid-19 protocols
Omoniyi also stressed that that Kwara State was one of the States who followed the Covid-19 protocols fully which is a main factor for the Q2 2020 revenue performance.
“In addition, you may recall that the State was adjudged as one of the highest in performance and proactiveness in the fight against Covid-19 on all indices by various monitoring entities. Recently, there was a similar feat by the government in the administration of the Covid-19 vaccination where the State topped all other States.
“Notwithstanding, with the gradual easing of the lockdown, revenue generation by the Service again shot up to N4billion in Q3 2020 and N6billion in the Q4 of 2020. Thus, it is obvious that the low IGR figures in Q2 and Q3 and consequent dip in 2020 IGR performance are solely attributable to the Covid-19 incidence and our contact-based collection which proved quite ineffective while the lockdown lasted. These observations were enumerated in the quarterly revenue collections reports released by the Service in year 2020”, she said.
She said KW-IRS will continue to work to ensure improvement in revenue generation; a veritable support for the Federal allocation to ensure the State Government meets its responsibilities and the desires of Kwara indigenes.
The Service will also continue its collaboration with all MDAs and Stakeholders in the State for effective and efficient collection of all that is legally due from taxpayers. It will achieve this by strategically and systematically playing its part in using most appropriate technology and committed workforce for the growth of revenue for the State.
Nneka Ukachukwu
