The Senate on Thursday kicked against the projection by the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the Budget Office to generate a total revenue of N500 billion from Stamp Duties in 2021.
At the interactive session on MTEF/FSP in the Senate, the Chairman of the FIRS, Mohammed Nami, had told lawmakers that in his agency’s projection for 2021, Stamp Duties should rake in N500 billion
But the President of the Senate, Senator Ahmad Lawan, rejected the projection, calling for a review that will enable Nigeria reduce its budget deficit.
According to Lawan: “With the current volume of electronic transactions in the country, we should be able to achieve better than N500 billion.”
Senator Ayo Akinyelure agreed with Lawan that the FIRS’s projection for Stamp Duties collection was grossly underestimated.
Akinyelure said with over 300,000 daily electronic transactions, the revenue generated from Stamp Duties will be sufficient to finance 30 per cent to 40 per cent of the budget.
Speaking, Senator Gabriel Suswam also faulted FIRS’s projection, pointing out that it did not even tally with the assumptions and analysis put forward by the agency.
The introduction of Stamp Duties has come with a lot of controversy, with the Nigeria Postal Service laying claims to it and accusing the Central Bank of Nigeria of stealing the idea from it.
On Thursday, the FIRS told the Senate that with the passage of the Finance Act, it was the agency empowered by law to collect the revenue.
The lawmakers however called for a review of the current projection of stamp duties in 2021.