The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the Lagos Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) have urged Nigerians to provide full support and cooperation to the agencies for the economic benefit of the country.

The agencies said this in a public notice issued on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by both agencies to establish a Joint FIRS and LIRS Audit and Investigation Team aimed at encouraging the exchange of information between them.

In the communique issued on Wednesday, June 7, by the FIRS Executive Chairman, Muhammad Nami, and his LIRS counterpart, Ayodele Subair, the agencies said the overall objective of the Joint Tax Audit would be to improve tax administration by reducing tax compliance cost thereby enabling ease of doing business in the country.

Speaking on the MoU, Subair said while the importance of the agreement was to foster greater collaboration between the two agencies, “there is no reason to debate the above as it has been established that tax compliance and good governance are expected to co-exist as the undividable social contract that binds citizens and governments anywhere in the world.

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“Therefore, citizens and governments are expected to fulfil their end of the bargain in achieving a balance,” he noted.

On his part, Nami said: “The cooperation would enable the two authorities to work as a team in sharing relevant information that would assist both parties in their tax administration and enforcement roles as it would also provide capacity building between both tax authorities.

“We will carry out a joint audit and investigation as a team, we will also conduct an automatic exchange of information for gathering data for the purpose of tax administration. With that information, we would be able to carry out tax administration seamlessly.”

He added that while the notice was issued for the information and guidance of the general public, taxpayers and tax practitioners in line with the MoU, the collaboration between both agencies in the area of exchange of information will ensure efficiency, accurate assessments, and increased revenue for funding of Government expenditure,

The FIRS boss, therefore, assured Nigerians that employees of both parties will abide by the Code of Conduct and Ethical compliance to assure that the implementation of the MoU does not impact negatively on the taxpayers and the parties.

The Star