FG Perfecting Plans to Up Stamp Duties Revenue to N1 Trillion
The Federal Government is presently devising means to generate about N1 trillion from stamp duties in 2020 despite the economic downturn.
This was disclosed on Tuesday at the inauguration of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Audit and Recovery of Back Years Stamp Duties in Abuja.
Boss Mustapha, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, who represented President Buhari at the inauguration, said there was an assurance that the collection of stamp duties in Nigeria would be second to oil revenue.
This, he said despite the economic implication of COVID-19, high unemployment rate, rising inflation rate and zero new job creation that forced Nigerians to protest against Access Bank debiting their accounts for the same stamp duty.
Boss Mustapha said the fluctuation in oil revenue and the gradual shift to technological products has forced the government to widen revenue base through stamp duty collection.
He said “Therefore, this administration has resolved to widen the revenue base by activating the stamp duty revenue collection which has been neglected for more than 20 years.
“There is assurance that the collection from stamp duty will be second to oil revenue, as it has the potential to yield up to a trillion-naira revenue annually if properly harnessed.”
He added that the federal government had consistently emphasised the need to tightening all areas of leakages and revenue losses.
“This has become more important now that the projected revenue realisable from all sources available to the government as per our 2020 budget estimates is far lower than the projected expenses leading to a budget deficit of over N5tn,” he stated.