By Steve Oni, Ilorin
The people of Kwara state, because of the tax they pay, now put the state government on its toes and have stopped being complacent.
The Executive Chairman of the Kwara State Internal Revenue Service (KWIRS), Muritala Awodun, who stated this on Tuesday in Ilorin, the state capital, while briefing journalists on the activities of his agency in the last two years, said the agency is targeting the sum of N38b as internally generated revenue in 2018 as submitted in the approved and signed 2018 budget.
Awodun said there had been a drastic improvement in payment of tax by people of the state since the agency came on board in 2015 and that this made people’s monitoring of government’s programmes to be more critical.
He said more people are paying the Personal Income Tax of 1,500 per annum by those in the informal sector and N12,000 per annum by those in the formal sector.
Awodun who described the tax as the least in the country said as moderate as it is it makes the people to ask questions about how government manages the state resources.
The KWIRS boss said the agency, in performing its task, had been acting as an intermediary between the people and the government.
He explained that the agency ensures that people perform their obligation of paying tax and on the other hand encourages the government to ensure the people feel impact of the revenue generated from them.
Awodun said the improved internally generated revenue of the state had enabled the government to embark on infrastructural projects as the money was devoted for the projects while it has also enabled the government to substantially devote federal allocation to payment of salary of workers.
The KWIRS boss said the agency had been able to improve revenue from tax from about N5b it used to be before 2015 to about N19b in 2017, while optimistic in upping revenue collection in 2018.
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