-by our correspondent.
Nigeria suffers losses amounting to over $178 billion or about N5.4 trillion, arising from tax evasion by multinationals doing business in the country between 2007 and 2017.
The Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Muhammad Nami, who disclosed this recently at a forum in Abuja, said the service has set up additional 35 tax audit units in the last one year to block illegal financial leakages and improve tax compliance rate by corporations operating in the country.
“Many rich multinational Corporations do not pay the right taxes due from them, let alone pay their taxes voluntarily, however, some of the companies are leading in tax compliance in various sectors.”Nami noted.
“As a result, in the last one year, we have created more than 35 additional tax audit units and deployed experienced and capable staff to take charge of these offices,” he added.
He said the FIRS is paying greater attention to tax audit in general and transfer pricing audit in particular to improve the level of tax compliance in the country citing a 2014 report, by a High-Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa, which pointed out that Nigeria accounts for 30.5 per cent of money lost by the continent through illicit financial flows.
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