By Ikenna Uwadileke
The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has urged all tiers of government to spend public funds judiciously to build trust and encourage citizens to pay their taxes.
FIRS Director of Emerging and Special Taxes, Mrs Amina Ado said this at the G2C/FIRS interface forum with stakeholders on Thursday in Abuja.
The event is with the theme: “Government to Citizen Interface: Tax in The Present Day Nigeria”.
Ado said that government could only get more Nigerians to pay tax if budgetary allocation was tailored to solve their needs that they could perceive.
According to her the Federal Government has so many responsibilities that it is the only one that does them, thus, it has to find a way to execute all these projects so that people can see them clearly.
“It is not just the hard infrastructure but also run the economy in a way that there will be confidence for people to invest because it is only when they invest that we can get the taxes.
“We also need to make sure that funds are used judiciously and in a way that will reduce the cost of governance.
“If you look at the federal budget, when you take out what the executive and other arms will spend, it is not that much.
“We need to create more trust and an environment where Nigerians are willing and able to invest and are excited to be Nigerians,” Ado said.
While explaining that FIRS only administers taxes and not the agency that spends the tax collected, she emphasised the need for citizens to hold political office holders accountable.
“It is the citizens that have to hold political office holders accountable and they hold us accountable for delivering on our target.
“They have given us a target of N10.4trillion.
“If Nigerians need to know what their tax is being used for, the budget office website is there, they release a quarterly budget implementation report, they can engage with it.
“During the budget process, the budget office also releases what they call a citizen guide to the budget,” she said.
Earlier, the convener of the programme and Senior Special Adviser on Political Matters to the President, Mr Bode Gbore, said that it was organised to open the channel of direct conversation between the government and the citizens.
“And it has proven that Nigerians are interested in making contributions to the development and well being of the nation,” he said. (NAN)