Muktar Ahmed, the Chairman of the Kaduna State Internal Revenue Service, KDIRS, said the state government generated more than N17 billion as Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) in 2016. He said that N17 billion generated in 2016 represented an increase of about 50 per cent from the N11.5 billion generated in 2015.
He attributed the increase in revenue profile of the state to the recent reform in revenue collection, particularly the new tax law that established the KDIRS in March 2016. He added that the law had among other things, harmonised and automated all revenue collection in the state.
The chairman explained that the state was able to double its IGR between N600 and N800 million a month to an average of N1.4 billion per month, courtesy of the new law. He said that “the law has abolished physical collection of cash by any staff of the service.
“What was happening in the past was that most of what government was collecting as revenue never went to government accounts. The process was sloppy and there were lots of diversion of resources. The law, therefore, closed the gaps, such that only the state revenue service is empowered to collect revenue.”
He also stated that the state government was now targeting N50.2 billion IGR in 2017, an average of N4.1 billion monthly.