Residents and business owners in Anambra State are owning a total of N513.9 billion as taxes to the state.

Outgoing chairman of Anambra Internal Revenue Service (AIRS), Dr. David Nzekwu, disclosed this at a news conference on Wednesday in Awka.

Nzekwu said the figure was a total of taxes owed by more than 2.1 million potential taxpayers enrolled and uploaded on its digital database.

Nzekwu, who assumed office as chairman of AIRS in March 2018, said the IGR profile of Anambra grew from N17 billion per annum in 2018 to N30.9 billion as at the end of 2021.

He said the number of tax payers in the state increased from 11,000 to 506,000 during the same period due to structural reforms which expanded the tax base.

“One of our core beliefs is that to solve the challenges of revenue administration and we have set up an architecture for Information Technology deployment, this will enable people to do transactions with us.

Obiano left N109bn debt, N300m cash ― Soludo

“We set up a system that is able to capture every individual taxpayer and receipt every taxation, that is what gave rise to Anambra Social Service Identity (ANSSID) number where each taxpayer has.

“With that, we have generated a total collectable bill of N513.9 billion as at January this year against 2.1 million taxpayers in the state.

“This means that if my successor can generate this bill and distribute to individuals and they begin to make payment, the government will have a lot of money,” he said.

He said the endemic prevalence of illegal road and parks collection was a huge source of leakage to the government while welcoming the decision of Governor Chukwuma Soludo to abolish all such collections.

The Star