IGR: Kwara Makes N6.6bn in Three Months

• IGR: Kwara Makes N6.6bn in Three Months

The Executive Chairman, Kwara State Internal Revenue Service, Dr. Muritala Awodun, on Wednesday stated that the agency collected N6.6bn in internally-generated revenue in the first quarter of this year.

He gave the breakdown as N2.1bn in January, N1.7bn in February, and N2.7bn March.

According to Awodun, the N6.6bn represents almost a 100 per cent increase over the N3.4bn the service recorded in the corresponding period of last year.

He spoke at a news conference held in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital.

The Commissioner for Information, Alhaji Babatunde Ajeigbe, said the state government was judiciously utilising its IGRs including for the augmentation of salaries.

The KWIRS chairman recalled that the 16 local government councils in the state, prior to the taking over of the responsibility of IGR collection, was generating N100m annually.

Awodun said, “The government has not reneged in its statutory responsibility of giving 10 per cent of whatever it generates through the IGRs to LGs.

“Government has kept its promises when it introduced KWIRS; that it will not introduce any new tax, levy or rate. There have been no new taxes, rates and levies introduced by the government. All collections have been based on what existed before, either were not collected or they were not collected efficiently.”

He added, “During the Kwara@50 celebration, the governor made a pronouncement of his intention to grant five-year tax holiday to the SMEs in order to encourage them to grow and develop the economy of the state. The modality for the tax holiday is being worked out.

“As a state, we do not have power over public limited liability companies because the Federal Government collects tax from them. So you cannot grant tax holiday to such organisations. The ones that we collect tax from are the ones that are qualified for the tax holiday.”