FIRS boss warns tax administrators against ICT inventions

Chairman of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mr Muhammad Nami,  has cautioned tax administrators against the disruptive tendencies that were undermining tax collection in the country.

Nami gave the warning while addressing some tax administrators from West African countries at a three-day Capacity Building Seminar organised by West Africa Tax Administration Forum (WATAF) and the Inter-American Centre for Tax Administrations (CIAT) in Abuja.

Nami cautioned that ICT based inventions like Blockchain, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence that were embedded in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, were greatly undermining the sector.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, he said is characterised by the fusion of digital, biological, and physical worlds, as well as the growing utilisation of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, robotics, 3D printing, the Internet of Things, and advanced wireless technologies, among others.

The FIRS boss explained that while these technological innovations were beneficial to revenue agencies in their assigned national task, they were also detrimental to effective tax collection.

He lamented that “Such technologies have disruptive tendencies because they have created new, fluid, hard-to-trace ways of doing business that makes it difficult for revenue agencies to tax their transactions.

“In the current world, disruptive technological innovations such as Blockchain technology, Machine Learning and the whole gamut of Artificial Intelligence (AI) have dire consequences for developing economies in terms of revenue loss and high staff turnover.

“The effects are also in the areas of staff dissatisfaction and deliberate `Head hunting’ of the very best of our employees by private entities which continue to deplete our work force.

“It is important for us as managers of human resources in tax administrations, to recognise the dynamics of changes occurring in the world in terms of the way businesses are being done and reported,” Nami added.