The House of Representatives has called on the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to diligently recover the outstanding N5.19 trillion in unpaid taxes from Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, as well as other entities.

On Thursday, the House of Representatives instructed the Federal Inland Revenue Service to reclaim all taxes exceeding N5.19 trillion owed to the Federal Government by Ministries, Departments and Agencies, oil companies, and individuals.

After a motion was introduced on Thursday at the House by the representative for Oredo Federal Constituency of Edo State, Esosa Iyawe, the resolution was promptly passed.

Taking charge of the discussion regarding the topic “Alleged failure to remit or under-remittance of taxes by government ministries, departments, agencies, oil companies, and other organizations,”.

The leader of the Labour Party noted that in 2021, it was brought to light by the FIRS that certain companies were owing a total of N17.69 billion in taxes. These companies could not be traced as their addresses remained unknown, and unfortunately, no steps were taken to locate or retrieve the outstanding funds.

He said, “Audit reports from 2015 to 2019 revealed government agencies owing hundreds of billions in FIRS taxes comprising underpayments and under recoveries and over 5,000 companies and MDAs of the Federal Government owing N5.2trn in withholding taxes.”