MTN Nigeria Communications Plc (MTN Nigeria) received two honours at the Federal Inland Revenue Service’s National Tax Dialogue Event, which took place recently (FIRS). On Tuesday, March 29, 2022, the second edition of this stakeholder engagement forum was hosted at the Banquet Hall of the State House Presidential Villa Abuja, with His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari as the special guest of honour.
MTN Nigeria was named the most tax-compliant company in Nigeria and a top 20 taxpayer for the fiscal year 2021. These awards recognize MTN Nigeria’s outstanding accomplishment in remitting taxes despite the pandemic’s obstacles.
MTN Nigeria’s overall tax payment to all government agencies, including the FIRS, was N757.6 billion in 2021, while the FIRS earned N6.4 trillion in tax income. MTN Nigeria paid the FIRS a total of N618.7 billion in direct and indirect taxes in the 2021 fiscal year, accounting for roughly 13.5 per cent of the total FIRS collection.
“I’m ecstatic about our performance and acknowledgement at this year’s National Tax Dialogue. Despite the fact that the past 24 months have been difficult for our country and other countries around the world, we remain committed to supporting the federal government’s ongoing Economic Growth Recovery Plan (EGRP) “MTN Nigeria’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Modupe Kadri, accepted the awards on behalf of the company.
“We will continue to invest heavily in network expansion with a focus on expanding access to under-served communities. We also plan to connect an additional 2,000 rural communities in 2022,” he added.
Speaking at the event, Zainab Ahmed, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning said the dialogue was designed to engage stakeholders in the Nigerian tax space in meaningful discourse to glean information, ideas and experience to aid policy formulation and improve the tax environment.
According to the Minister, the other tax revenue objectives are “to institutionalise a healthy tax culture among Nigerians. The right attitude towards taxation will enable every Nigerian to become a co-guardian of the tax system and the commonwealth.
In addition, this will create a participatory system of taxation whereby the taxpayers and other stakeholders understand and accept that they have an equal stake in the tax system.”
The Chairman FIRS, Muhammad Nani, thanked the President for his directive to government agencies enabling FIRS to connect to their ICT systems, noting that this singular pronouncement softened the ground for the Service to roll out its system for the seamless acquisition of data.
“We are confident that by the time all the agencies achieve 100 per cent compliance with the President’s directive, Nigeria shall be the envy of other countries for tax compliance and domestic tax revenue mobilisation,” he said.
