By Francis Ogwo
The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) disclosed that it has regularly generated N3billion weekly from stamp duty collection from May till date from Deposit Money Banks (DMBs).
This was made public on Tuesday by its Executive Chairman, Muhammad Nami, during a meeting with the House of Representatives Committee on Finance on its aim at settling the dispute between the FIRS and the Nigeria Postal Service (NIPOST) over stamp duty collection and the fate of the N58bn revenue generated from February 2016 to April 2020.
The meeting was chaired by the Chairman Finance Committee of the House, Hon. Abiodun Faleke; and included other members of the committee, the Post Master-General of the Federation, Dr. Ismail Adebanjo Adewusi; NIPOST Chairman, Maimuna Abubarkar and other top officials of the postal agency and FIRS.
In the meantime, the Federal Government, through the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN) has stated in a virtual meeting with the states’ Attorney-Generals, the Chairman, FIRS and members of the Joint Task Board that it was ready too provide support for states towards recovering the backlog of stamp duty from January 15, 2016 to June 29, 2020 and generate more revenue.
According to Nami, the FIRS were able to achieve the from a single stream of stamp duty collection from DMBs because it had applied a new technology called Application Programming Interface (API) technology solution, an online real-time technology, which would track and capture such revenue straight into the Federation Account.
Nami said, upon his resumption in December last year, the FIRS discovered over N30bn in NIPOST Stamp Duty Account with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The account was opened in 2016 specifically to warehouse revenue from stamp duty collection.
However, by April 2020, the balance in the account had grown to N58bn because of the deployment of the API by the FIRS. Money in the stamp duty account by May 2020 was transferred to the Federation Account following instructions given to the CBN by the FIRS to do so.
Since then, both the FIRS and the NIPOST have been at daggers drawn over who controls stamp duty collection and invariably the money, which accrues from the collection.
Nami disclosed that payment of stamp duties collection dates back to 94 years ago, stressing that stamp duty had always been part of the revenue schedule of tax authority.
