By: Emmanuel Nlewedum
The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) have concluded plans to double their Education Tax Collection from N277b target of 2020 to N500b in 2021.
Chairman, Board of Trustees (BoT) of TETfund, Kashim Ibrahim Imam at the TETfund/FIRS 2020 Interactive Forum in Port Harcourt titled: “New thrust in sustaining the EDT collection during COVID-19 pandemic for effective service delivery of the mandate of the fund” disclosed that its target was to generate N500 billion from the Education Tax collection from companies in 2021.
Imam, who commended the FIRS for their achievements so far in 2020, tasked the agency to be more proactive and improve on it’s collection strategy to surpass it’s 2020 target of N277bn next year.
“The figure for this year, 2020 is 277bn. This year, we have 235bn collected already. That means by December we would have collected the 277 billion target.
“I challenge the FIRS to do more than they are doing. We should be looking at the region of N500 billion next year. We should not be looking at 10% increase on N277 billion, that is not good enough. We should target N500 billion. I will do everything to support you, and I will support and consult for free to ensure we achieve this.”
“We have 75 ongoing projects at the University of Lagos, 68 ongoing projects at LASU, 68 ongoing projects at UNIPORT, all funded by TETFund and we have similar stories in all campuses across the country”
“The partnership between TETfund and FIRS is working. I can tell you that the monies paid by companies and private sectors as taxes are being judiciously utilized by TETFund to impact positively in transforming and developing of the education sector”.
While calling for more funding of the education sector, the TETfund BoT Chairman charged companies that are not paying their tax to do so.
Executive Secretary of TETfund, Prof. Sulaiman Bagoro in his address said practical steps are being taken to generate more funds through the education tax collection stressing that the tax is used for research and educational development on the nation.
He noted that TETfund has over the years transformed both federal and state owned tertiary institutions in the country.
The Chairman, FIRS, Muhammad Nami, represented by Coordinating Director, FIRS, Mr. Ezra Zuberu said it will give all necessary support to ensure that all intervention projects of TETfund are achieved.
He promised that the FIRS will not only meet it’s target of N277bn in 2020, but will surpass the N500bn target for 2021.
The FIRS boss lamented that most companies and businesses operating in the country are not registered with the CAC thereby making them difficult to be captured by the commission.
Disclosing that N4.12 Trillion has been collected by FIRS so far in 2020, he said tax payment is important and everyone should pay for a better Nigeria.
“The FIRS will meet the target given to us by the government.
“We will do everything to ensure that the plans of TETFUND are achieved. We will ensure that all the funds are mobilised in executing projects in the tertiary institution.
“This year there has been the challenge of Covid-19, but that has not deterred us. We are working to ensure that the taxes are collected and used accordingly.
“As at October 2019, we generated N214 billion. October, 2020, we have gathered N251 billion. We will surpass the targets given to us for this year and even for next year.”
