FIRS begins digital capturing of market traders to widen VAT collection

By Abubakar Yunusa

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) on Thursday commenced the implementation of the Integrated Market Revenue Management System (IMRMS), a purpose-built digital platform, to capture the informal sector, especially market traders in the federal government’s tax net.
The FIRS is partnering with the Market Traders Association of Nigeria (MATAN), the umbrella body for all trading associations in Nigeria with a membership of well over 40 million traders across the country, to collect and remit Value Added Tax (VAT) from traders in the marketplace, using the IMRMS platform.
The collaboration is known as the VAT Direct Initiative (VDI), which is part of a push to widen the government’s tax base.
Under the arrangement, MATAN is expected to digitally enumerate its members, give them a digital identity, and track their turnover so that VAT accrued is collected and remitted to the FIRS.
Through this initiative, the FIRS will help tackle multiple taxation in the marketplace through a partnership with security agencies to curb the activities of touts, miscreants, and self-imposed tax collectors involved in illegal tax collection in Nigeria’s market spaces.
Speaking at an official commencement of the traders’ enumeration exercise in Abuja, Mr Adebayo Adefeogbe, a director in the FIRS, said the initiative would grant the government coordinated access to almost 70 per cent untax revenue in the informal sector.
He said collecting VAT from over 40 million traders would enable the government to provide basic amenities in marketplaces across the country.
Moses Ige, MATAN National Coordinator of Incentives, urged market leaders who were present at the event, to sensitise members of various market associations to ensure that they are captured for the VAT Direct Initiative (VDI).
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