EKIRS BOSS ADVOCATES SYNERGY WITH FEDERAL REVENUE SERVICE

 By Hassan Bakare 

The Chairman of the Ekiti State Internal Revenue Service (EKIRS), Mr. Olaniran Olatona has advocated more synergy between his office and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) towards improving revenue generation in the State.

Mr. Olatona who made the call in Ado Ekiti during a courtesy visit of his team to the Ado-Ekiti office of the FIRS where they were warmly received by the States Coordinator for Kwara, Ondo and Ekiti *of FIRS*, Prince Isola Akingbade, the Tax Controller - Mr. Mathew Olarewaju and other senior staff of FIRS, Ado-Ekiti.  

Olaniran reiterated his commitment to boosting the State’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and having identified solid collaboration as a step towards achieving this, saw the need for EKIRS team to pay a courtesy call to FIRS Regional Coordinator. Olaniran highlighted so many areas of possible collaboration to include joint enforcement and monitoring, data sharing, joint tax audit and so on. The two bodies should be collaborators and not competitors and should work together as professionals in compliance with extant tax laws.

In his remarks, Prince Isola Akingbade congratulated Mr. Olatona on his appointment as the Executive Chairman of EKIRS and expressed his confidence in the ability of the new EKIRS Chairman to deliver going by his proven track records. He however warned him that his new assignment is extremely difficult, as Ekiti State could be a difficult terrain to practice tax. He opined that it could be easier to enjoy the support of the informal sectors than the elites who would rather overlook the extant tax laws to pay what they deem suitable.

“You can’t tax and please the people at the same time. Mr Chairman, you must be prepared to have a drastic reduction in your friends and increase in your foes”, Prince Akingbade said.

The Onisan of Isan Kingdom and the current Chairman of Ekiti State Council of Traditional Rulers, Oba Gabriel Ayodele Adejuwon congratulated Olaniran and gave him royal blessings in the new role. 

Mssrs. Matthew Olanrewaju (Tax Controller), Sunday Babarinde (KEO Head, Technical) and Kayode Onabanjo (Head, Audit) all spoke in agreement on the need for collaboration on all frontiers to achieve maximum success. The FIRS team emphasised the need to encourage transparency and let there be clear distinctions between Limited Liability Companies and registered business names (enterprises) operating in the state.

The tax controller in particular expressed his delight at this development as his team had always desired a better working relationship with Ekiti State Internal Revenue Service.

Prince Isola Akingbade thereafter advised on the need for EKIRS to engage the MDAs and let them see the need to domesticate contractors’ Tax Identification Number (TIN) in order to fully benefit from the 7.5% VAT and the 5% Withholding Tax elements on contracts and projects executed in the State.

Olaniran thanked the Ekiti State FIRS team for the warm reception accorded his team and promised to engage taxpayers through continuous sensitization so that the clarity between FIRS and EKIRS would be made known to them. He promised to reciprocate the gesture of FIRS in providing and office space for staff of EKIRS such that the era of taxpayers playing FIRS against EKIRS and vice versa would end.