By Golok Nanmwa,Jos

Plateau State government has said it has generated a total N 7.2 billion as its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) between January and March 2020.

They further said that the amount is the highest ever generated within the first quarter of the year for the past five years.

Addressing newsmen in Jos the state capital yesterday, the Chairman Plateau State Internal Revenue Service, Dashe Arlat, said the state government put it effective and unprecedented strategy in order to boost the state’s IGR and they succeeded.

Arlat noted that with the decline in the price of crude oil due to outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic, taxation became the major means of revenue generation.

He said, despite the effect of the pandemic, the service had devised new means of generating revenue from various sectors currently working, such as telecommunication, agriculture, transportation and the health.

The chairman said that the service would not rest on its oars in revenue generation in spite of the global pandemic.

He also revealed that the service had procured hand sanitiser and face masks for distribution to its customers and indigents people

The Service in January to March 2020 rolled out a specific strategy to intensify all Tax assessments in the formal and informal sectors in the Headquarters and zonal offices across the state tagged: ‘Operation Show Your Tax Receipts’ which was successful in ensuring that over 54% of tax payers in the formal sector and 60% in the Informal sector complied with our assessments and have been making payments as and when due.

“In 2019, the Service discovered that there is a need to carry out aggressive tax audit and investigation to improve state IGR. This strategic direction assisted the Tax Audit and Investigation Department to identify all individuals and organizations to aggressively pursue tax efforts between the year 2019 and 2020.

“Thus, between January and March 2020 alone the Service embarked on aggressive tax audit and investigation of all organizations in and outside Plateau State recording a remarkable recovery of over N3.8 Billion from Federal MDA’s alone.

He added that they have also throw their weight behind the positive measures taken by Governor Simon Lalong to combat the spread of Corona Virus by reviewing the lockdown days, restriction of movements within and into Plateau State and the deployment of grade level 10-14 to various points across the State.

“The Service is working hard to continuously embark on ways to ensure effective compliance of both individuals, corporations and government agencies which could lead to establishment of huge liabilities of at least N30 Billion,” he said.

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Plateau State Generates N7.2 billion as IGR in First Quarter of 2020