FIRS Challenged to Adopt ICT, Proper Bookkeeping for Improved Taxes, Revenue, Remittances

Dr. Yahaya Sule, the Managing Partner of Yahaya Sule and Company, a renowned chartered accounting consortium, has highlighted significant issues in the tax collection and remittance process in Nigeria.

During an interactive session with the media at his corporate office in Benin City, Edo State, Dr. Sule identified improper bookkeeping as a major factor contributing to the gaps in taxes, revenue collection, and remittances handled through private banks for the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

Dr. Sule emphasized that the FIRS’ current approach to recording inflows from partnering collection banks is flawed, leading to potential leakages. He pointed out that the FIRS do not maintain backend records that align with the actual collections received by the banks. This lack of concurrent accounting records and bookkeeping for tax revenue collections and remittances hampers the ability to effectively use bank reconciliation statements to verify and compare records.

Dr. Sule’s insights call for a more robust and transparent system to ensure accurate tax collection and remittance, ultimately improving revenue management for the federal government, noting that “the FIRS rely on mirrored record of bank memorandum account to serve as FIRS taxes revenue record, which is inappropriate and professionally unacceptable.”

The financial accounting expert urged the FIRS to leverage emerging information technology to access and view actual debit entries on bank statements, reflecting received tax revenues. He emphasized that the records FIRS currently depend on for reconciliation do not belong to FIRS and cannot be considered part of its records since FIRS neither owns nor creates them, and such information is not under its management and control.

Dr. Sule asserted that, from a professional accounting perspective, FIRS should cease recognizing and accepting second-hand information as its tax revenue accounting records. He stressed the importance of FIRS maintaining its own records to ensure accurate and reliable financial reporting

“The principle and practice of bookkeeping dictates that you should prepare, maintain, and manage your own books, from which data should be derived to prepare FIRS periodic financial reports,” said Dr. Sule.

Furthermore, he highlighted that, “in the manual accounting system, what is referred to as in the book of XYZ or ABC is known as the database of XYZ or ABC in the computerize accounting system”, noting that this calls for questioning the software that FIRS currently owns; utilizes, maintains and control to manage taxes revenue accounting records, queried Dr. Sule.

The highly sought-after financial accounting and tax consultant, underscored the importance of proper bookkeeping in banking procedures. He explained that when an entity operates an account with a bank, it is duty-bound to maintain a transaction history or record of its dealings with the bank through a bank cashbook. This entity must also prepare continuous periodic reconciliations to produce its own periodic bank reconciliation statements, a task that is impossible without the operation of a bank cashbook.

Dr. Sule highlighted that a bank reconciliation statement is a crucial management control tool, ensuring the prompt detection and correction of errors, fraud, irregularities, and other material discrepancies in any accounting system. He lamented that such tools are either not deployed or altogether absent in the FIRS accounting process, which undermines the credibility of its financial reports.

To address these issues, Dr. Sule urged the FIRS to embrace technology to close the identified gaps. He advocated for the use of emergent information technology to access and view actual debit entries on bank statements, reflecting received tax revenues.

Going forward, he recommended that the FIRS partners with relevant consultants to improve its operations and accurately capture the actual remittances flow from banks into the tax-revenue net. By doing so, the FIRS can enhance its revenue collection and ensure more accurate and reliable financial reporting