By Abbas Bamalli
The Katsina State Government says it will conduct integrity tests for its special informal sector internal revenue collectors in the state, tagged ‘Super Agents’.
It added that through the use of the super agents, it projects to generate from the informal sector, about N6 to N7 billion from January to December 2025.
The Executive Chairman of the State Inland Revenue Service (KT-IRS), Alhaji Isiyaku Mohammad, disclosed this in Katsina on Monday, at a two-day workshop organised for the agents.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the workshop on informal sector revenue drive, was organised by the KT-IRS in collaboration with the Access Bank.
According to Mohammed, the aim of the integrity test is to ensure that the agents are honest, liable, have the capacity, competency and skills to be engaged in collecting the taxes.
He added that the agents must not be graduates “before they are engaged in the revenue collection, as long as the board is satisfied with the afore-mentioned qualities.”
The chairman said that the law has provided that all taxes collected by the IRS on behalf of the local governments, the service was entitled to 10 per cent, while the 90 per cent would be remitted to the local governments.
“You know, when you are talking about tax, the list of taxes differ. There’s a list of taxes for the local government, and there are those that belong to the state.
“So, what we did as far as this arrangement is concerned, we’re collecting on behalf of the state and the local governments, after collections, 90 per cent will go to them.
“And from our side, we join their remaining 10 per cent with ours, so that at the end of the day, we’re going to give the consultant 20 per cent.
“Therefore, the POS machines to be used for the collection, once they collect the tax, 90 per cent will automatically go to the local government account,” he said.
According to Mohammed, the two-day workshop is organised to equip the agents with more knowledge on how to use the POS machines for the collection of the taxes.
He said the aim was also to move the state ahead, through boosting the revenue collection, so that more developmental projects would be provided for the benefit of the people.
Explaining further on the informal revenue collection, an official of the Access Bank, Mr Adewale Babatunde, said the informal sector accounts for 58 per cent contributions in any economy.
According to Babatunde, the project is aimed at moving far away from the era of revenue collection without remittance.
He assured that Access Bank was partnering with the state government to ensure accountability and transparency in informal sector revenue collections.
“We are going to work with the state government to ensure that government fully depends on the IGR, instead of waiting for allocation from the Federal Government,” he noted.
NAN
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