officers
Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun says the Federal
Government has recruited and trained 2,190 Community Tax
Liaison Officers (CTLOs) under the Voluntary Assets and Income
Declaration Scheme (VAIDS).
Adeosun, in a statement by her Special Adviser, Media and
Communications, Mr Oluyinka Akintunde, said that 1,710 CTLOs
had already been deployed to 33 states, out of the number
recruited and trained. She said that their task was to raise
awareness about the scheme and taxation in general.She said
that the CTLOs were currently operating in Adamawa, Cross
River, Delta, Edo, Enugu, Kaduna, Kwara, Lagos, Nassarawa,
Niger, Ogun and Oyo states among others.
The minister said there was no hiding place for tax evaders
residing in Nigeria or abroad, noting that the Federal Government
had put in place a data mining mechanism to fish out
evaders.“The unique cooperation between the various arms of
Federal Government, state governments and foreign
governments has provided an unprecedented level of data that
allows the Nigerian Government to profile taxpayers accurately.
“We are now able to identify those whose lifestyle and assets
are not consistent with their declared income. “A lot of data
mining is going on daily, both locally and internationally, on
property ownership and other items. Data is an extremely
powerful tool that is now being utilized. “For instance, we have
reviewed all companies that received major payments from the
Federal Government in the last 5 years and found that even those
who made money from government, under-declared,” she said.
Adeosun said that the tax compliance team had looked at import
records and compared the value of goods imported to the tax
declarations of the importers, but the discovery was worrisome
as “the variance was disturbingly wide”. “On personal income
taxes, we reviewed property and company ownership as well as
registration of high value assets and foreign exchange
allocations, which gives us a sense of the lifestyles of the
persons.
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