Ayodele Subair: We’re Working On a Whistle-blowing Framework to Guarantee Tax CredibilityLagos State’s

quest to become a mega city is hinged on many factors. How well it designs mechanisms structured at boosting its revenue sources to drive economic growth and prosperity in the state, would be one of the key priorities its leadership must invest in. While prioritising its revenue base is one, another is putting to judicious use, funds generated from taxes and levies. With over six million taxpayers out of which only four million are active, there is an urgent need to further formulate policies and design strategies to get more taxpayers into the tax net. In this interview with THISDAY, Executive Chairman of Lagos Internal Revenue Service, Mr. Ayodele Subair, shares his thoughts on how the state tax agency has evolved over the years, leveraging technology to boost revenue generation for the state to drive economic growth while also improving service delivery to taxpayers. Excerpts:

Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, recently approved your reappointment for a second and final term of five years as Executive Chairman, Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS). What do you think informed that decision?
Well, I just feel it is an endorsement of what we are trying to do here. We are identifying with the vision of the state. We are working with the vision of the Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu. So, I see it as an endorsement that we are doing something right in the agency and in terms of assessing or appraising me, I will leave it to you or to posterity why a reappointment has come, but definitely you know we do not play in Lagos and everything is based on merit and performance. I would like to think that the administration is happy with what we are doing here.

What has your performance been like, especially in 2021, as well as for January and February this year?
In 2021, we did a total of N427 billion approximately, and in 2020, we did about N355 billion and that was in a year of Covid-19 and we really stretched ourselves with all the constraints and we were still able to perform 102 per cent of budget in 2020 and in 2021, we were able to ramp up and made about N427 billion approximately. So in 2022, we have continued to innovate and come up with winning strategies so we are able to also push up our numbers. In January 2022, we did N40.5 billion approximately and in February, we did about N39 billion approximately. Although there was a slight decrease, it is very insignificant and we hope to continue in that trajectory.

What were the key drivers and the initiatives you introduced that made the LIRS to record such a feat in 2021? Also, last December, you said you were going to introduce initiatives to enhance the ease of doing business in Lagos State, can you take us through some of those initiatives?
For any economy to do well in tax collection, you will have to embrace technology. That is usually a key aspect of tax administration for serious agencies. So, our initiatives have been around using technologies to reach out and collect revenue.  To be a bit more specific, just before the Covid-19 outbreak, we came out with an end-to-end tax administration solution that we call e-tax, also known as enterprise tax. That has allowed us to work remotely with a lot of the residents in the state.

We have put out this application and it helps us with registration and people can actually interact with e-tax directly from the comfort of their homes. They can register, come up with assessment, make payments and it also has a multi-payment channel. They can make payments through the portal and then, they can also print receipts. We also have sort of a chat box in there for them to make all their enquiries; but ultimately, in the second phase of e-tax, people will be able to print out tax clearing certificates by themselves and there are few more modules that we are adding to improve on e-tax. So e-tax really helped us reach out to a lot of taxpayers. They can make a lot of their enquiries through e-tax because it has a chat box and through that chat box, as they are typing their enquiries, they are getting real-time answers so that has really helped us.

So, in terms of reaching out more even to the informal sector, we have what we call the Ibile hub project that we have undertaken. There is an Ibile hub application that is used and we go into all the markets, to all the traders and all the artisans and we are able to register them with biometric facilities that are inbuilt in the devices and one major feature of that application is that people in the informal sector can now pay in installments. Basically through technology, we are also giving a lot of education and enlightenment to both our staff and to members of the public because many of them have issues of understanding what taxation is all about and how to go about it.

We also have a campaign running which is on filing annual returns.  We spend a lot of time on adverts both on television, radio and newspapers to educate people on how to go about it and fulfilling their own side of the social contract. We also have a contact center, which is very active and people really use it, a lot of members of the public phone in all the time. Our contact center avails them the opportunity to make enquiries on the types of taxes and how it affects their businesses and how they can go about payments.

Our operators are well trained, they pick up and we also monitor them and everything is recorded for quality control and to make sure that even those that are not satisfied automatically, their details are recorded and where the operator cannot give immediate answers and needs to escalate to a more senior person, the details of the caller are taken and we would get back to them.  These are the ways and means we try to ease the payment of taxes to make it cheaper for the taxpayers to comply.

Talking about multiple taxation, because it is one issue business operators in Lagos complain about, what are you doing to arrest the solution?
There are many angles to this issue of multiple taxation. What do we really mean by multiple taxation? They can come generally through two ways. Firstly, it is paying same tax on same income.  You already know we have three tiers of government and each person’s tax type is well defined by the approved taxes and levies and collections. So, taxes that are due to the federal government are pronounced, the ones that are due to the state are pronounced and local government really do not collect taxes, but levies and administrative charges; which is part of where the confusion comes from.

Talking about the two types of possible scenarios on multiple taxation is when you are paying to federal and also paying to state, then you can classify it as multiple taxation, while the other type is when you are paying the same tax to different authorities. With that, people are a bit confused as to what constitutes taxes and what constitutes administrative charges and levies. Tax is by definition a compulsory levy for which there is no direct benefit to the taxpayer, whereas the administrative charges and levies usually are for a specific benefit that is derived by the payer and this is mostly what the local governments charge as well as some agencies.

For instance, Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) will make you pay for clearance of refuse and some people will then say there are too many taxes, some are even for traffic violation and the rest. So everybody then adds everything together and say that it is multiple taxation.  Part of what we do when we advocate out there is that we try to let people know there is a difference between those two categories so in the real sense of it, I cannot say that there are multiple taxes because Lagos State as a responsible entity will not collect illegal taxes and you will hardly hear accusations against LIRS over the charging of multiple taxes.

The accusation is mostly on this issue of administrative charges, but some would say that they pay their taxes to LIRS, so why are they still paying those other bills coming from other agencies of the state. But those are largely for the direct benefit of certain social services. All the same, we take a lot of steps in trying to educate and enlighten members of the public and we stick seriously to this issue of working on only taxes that we are legally allowed to collect and the state is also very interested in harmonising taxes.

We have a body called the Joint State Revenue Committee which I am the Chairman and other members include the chair of chair, which is the Chairman of the Conference of 57, which is all the local governments put together, we also have the road safety, we have a couple of directors in LIRS that are also part of that, we also have representations from the Ministry and some other relevant agencies.  Part of our work is to look at all these taxes out there to try and work towards harmonisation, try and make sure that whichever agency or body of government that is involved in illegal activities, that is in terms of collection of taxes and levies, we sort of have a kind of oversight over all these.

So these are some of the measures we are taking to reduce the allegation of multiple taxation. It is always a very controversial topic and anytime I go to deliver a paper at any forum, a lot of people when they ask questions, they ask about this issue of multiple taxation and by the time I go through some of their complaints, some of them have a better understanding of it while some still insist that there is multiple taxation so that is the situation and we are quite concerned about that.

The last time you granted an interview to THISDAY, you said the LIRS was setting up a revenue code that would be publicised both on your website and in national newspapers. How far have you gone with that?
The whole idea of the code is to include all taxes, all administrative charges within the state into a code, a book, and then publish this code like other developed countries have done so that anybody who wants to do any business in Lagos would have an idea of all the possible tax payments and administrative charges that they would be subjected to so that people who want to start businesses can plan and know for sure what each agency is legally allowed to collect and even the quantum. We have done that compilation and we actually concluded it in 2021, between this agency and the office of the Commissioner of Finance.

Actually, the code is there but we have to enshrine it into a law; so it has to be included as part of our revenue administration law. That aspect is currently being done by the Ministry of Justice and as soon as they conclude, we now have to take it to the House of Assembly and when the House passes it, then it becomes publicised and put on the website. With that, no matter the ministry, no matter the agency, you will see all the types of charges that they are legally bound to collect, but at the moment, some of them just make up huge amounts and unleash on the public.

But we do not want that to happen because we are a responsible agency and our own rates are all fixed and we do not go outside our rates. We also want all the other agencies in the state to follow the same pattern because they themselves are the ones who gave us all the inputs, but before including them, we made sure that they were genuine by going through the appropriate laws that set them, so very soon we shall make that public.

How about you shed more light on the recently-introduced N800 daily transport levy for commercial buses in the state?
Over the years, there has been a lot of confusion out there when it comes to transportation charges and different administrations have also looked into the matter to try and find an everlasting solution to it. The administration of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, who is doing so much to bring this state to a 21st-century megacity which is its rightful place did a lot of consultations largely between the state and certain stakeholders in the transport sector, mainly the unions such as the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) and Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN). We also had members such as Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA), Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Transport, LAWMA and LIRS.

In the past, some transporters paid as high as N5,000 a day, but it was averagely N3,000 and I am sure you are a resident of Lagos and you see all the actors on the street collecting tickets.  The state government looked at the situation and said this cannot continue and part of its policy is to have the interest of all Lagos residents at heart.  At the end of our consultations, we came up with a plan to sell a daily ticket at the price of N800 instead of N3000, because some of the transporters, as they are crossing from one jurisdiction to another, they are paying to different actors. With the N800 ticket, it is going to be applicable statewide and once you pay it, you are not going to pay it in any other area.

The unions have embraced it and they have started purchasing these tickets from the state and largely from LIRS and at the end of the day, this N800 is going to be shared amongst the different agencies. LIRS has a share of it, that is,   the Personal Income Taxes of the drivers, conductors and those employed in the transport sector. Agencies like LAWMA are responsible for cleaning the refuse of all the motor parks and so they will get a share of it; the Ministry of Environment is also ensuring that the environment is clean, hygienic and conducive to members of the public.

So, they get a share of it for them to do their own work and then we cannot do it without the cooperation of the unions and so for their own logistics, they also get a share of it and the Ministry of Transport is the one that regulates all the motor parks so the drivers need to get the licences from them so they will also get a share of it and Ministry of Finance who takes care of the fiscal end of the state, they also get a very small share of it. So that way, the N800 is going to be shared and we have an agreement to that effect and as a matter of fact, many other associations have approached us and we are signing them on.

They want to be a part of this scheme because it is like a ticket that takes care of many responsibilities for them because they have to also contribute to the development of the state which is why there is an element of income tax because if we do not pay taxes, the state will never develop. This is why they have embraced it and at the end of the day, they will also get tax clearance and many of them are proud to display their tax clearance card and say that they are playing their role in the society. It is ongoing and at the moment, it is working for everyone.

So, people are asking a lot of questions about the N800 ticket we are selling in the private sector; that, why is it that the NURTW is also allowed to sell its own ticket.  But the truth of the matter is that the trade unions are recognised by the constitution and they have their check-off dues just like the Nigeria Union of Journalists and all professional bodies pay dues. So, we cannot stop the NURTW and the RTEAN from taking the union fees. That is why that still stands. Even though they are getting their share of the N800 for the logistics they are using to support us, constitutionally they are entitled to collect their dues and we cannot stop it. We do not regulate trade unions and the NURTW is under the Nigeria Labour Congress.

But a lot of critics still believe that the tax administration in Lagos is still shrouded in corruption?
Well, my response to that will be that through technology, almost everything is being automated and that is why we are adopting and embracing technology. Sometime in 2017 or so, the state made a definitive pronouncement that all collection of cash must stop and that taxpayers must pay directly into the state account and no Lagos State employer or agent is allowed to collect cash from anybody. That was a major move to clean up, because if it is paid into the account, there are statements to show every kobo that comes in and there are receipts issued for every amount that comes into the consolidated revenue fund.

That is one major part and the other part that comes is through the other types of technologies that we have introduced in one form or the other. We have also enlightened a lot of our staff just like the MDAs have enlightened their staff. Salaries have been reviewed in LIRS, bonuses have been introduced to improve staff welfare and to make people turn away from illegal practices. So, I will say whilst it might not be possible to clear misappropriation 100 per cent, we are moving towards a 100 per cent mark.
The state is definitely doing a lot and this administration is doing a lot to ensure that integrity holds in all its ramifications. At the LIRS again, we are working on a whistle-blowing framework at the moment and it is going to be web-based; there is going to be easy access by members of the public, who will whistle blow and report any activity by any member.  These are some of the steps we are taking to ensure that all taxes are fully accounted for.

Lagos State is embarking on massive infrastructure development and upgrade, the governor has even promised to do more with increased revenue. As the revenue collection agency of government, isn’t it trite to assume you are under immense pressure to bring in more money from taxes?
There is always pressure on anybody who has the function of raising funds in any society even if you belong to a social gathering, whoever is the treasurer knows what he goes through. So, it is a daunting task, but we are able to cope because we share in the vision of the government. The government through T.H.E.M.E.S is trying very hard to improve the society through the provision of infrastructure and qualitative social services, so we have no choice than to key in and ensure that we do the needful in terms of collection; so we train our staff, we sit down and strategise. We have a lot of meetings both internally and externally and we are also investing a lot in technology and as we can see from our results, we are getting the right results as we are on an upward trajectory all the time. So, yes we are under pressure, but we are coping.

What is the LIRS doing to widen the tax net in Lagos, especially, from the side of the informal sector, and what is the actual number of taxpayers in the state?
If we cannot increase the tax rate, at least we can widen the tax net to bring more people into the tax net which is the logical thing to do.  The LIRS as an agency has a major objective of widening that tax net and in bringing in as many taxpayers as possible for the general benefit of everybody. So, we are leveraging largely on technology to achieve the widening of the tax net. I already spoke to you about our e-tax platform where people can on their own and from the comfort of their homes log in and register themselves. Likewise, I mentioned the Ibile hub application which speaks to the issue of bringing more people from the informal sector into the tax net.

I know a lot of people within the informal sector are already captured, but in the past, there was no biometric registration and that was a huge challenge to the state because you know that banks were allowed to register anybody who wanted to pay taxes. It was not done with biometric registration and there was no unique identifier so generally, the whole of the country has a problem with data. In recent times, we have had the addition of National Identification Number (NIN), the federal government is also leveraging technology. We have the NIN, so we are trying to use that now as our own unique identifier so that when we go out into the markets, into the streets and we talk to people we ensure we get their NIN, because through the NIN, we can always identify that person.

But in the past, we did not have that benefit. Through leveraging technology, we recorded huge progress and we are reaching out. We divided the state by the division and we have teams that go out on a daily basis and as we speak, we are in all the five divisions, but we added two more because Lagos Island and Lagos Mainland are big. So, we operate from seven divisions and we have teams in all the seven divisions and on a daily basis, we go into markets working with heads of the markets and through the various associations. It is a big campaign that we started in October last year and we are already seeing the results.

To answer your question about the amount of taxpayers, we have about six million taxpayers in Lagos at the moment in which over four million are active. Now potentially, we know that we can increase this number, but the real problem is data, people in the lower bottom of the pyramid are very mobile so where exactly are you going to catch them, they do not have fixed shops, they do not have fixed places that they operate from, some of them are just on the street with trays on their head, which makes reaching them more difficult. But with this Ibile hub project that is ongoing, we are really achieving positive results and they are also embracing it along with their work.

We do a lot of tax enlightenment and education and we talk to them about the social contract and many of them are actually interested in paying tax, but in the past, we have many of them that used to say they were interested, but that they do not really earn, saying what they earn is like subsistence living. They also used to say if they earn N100, they have to spend N200 asking where they would get the money to pay tax, but many of them are embracing the model especially allowing them to make payments in installments, some pay as low as N100 and they get their receipts and it is recorded because it is all properly configured in the application.
So, they add the mode of payment for their own convenience and for the transport sector within the informal sector, the daily ticket is taking care of them and we are going to share daily databases with them, because all their members are going to come onboard, so that way, we are gradually expanding the tax net and we will continue in that regard.

The informal sector actually remains key to increasing revenue generation, but it appears there is actually little appetite to aggressively pursue the opportunities here by really capturing a major chunk of this sector into the tax bracket. How much of this has to do with politics and how much has to do, maybe, with other factors such as logistics challenge?

In capturing the informal sector, we do not link it to politics, we do not go to any political structures for any help or assistance. We go straight into the market as  I said, tradesmen, artisans and we work through their associations and heads of associations and they are willing to work with us and to bring in their members. So, there is really no link between the work of the agency and politics. We run away from politics because we serve both PDP and APC or members of whatever party it is. We need to deal with them very fairly under the tenets and principles of taxation. We do not embrace politics at all, we do not encourage it and we also do not allow it, but there are many constraints as you said and the key one is a lack of credible data and that is what the Lagos State government has been working on seriously and not just in LIRS and as you attested to, across all ministries, there has been a lot of technologies introduced to help the work.

So, we have to deal with the fact that the level of tax enlightenment is quite low in our state and in Nigeria as a whole. We have to really try and educate residents of Lagos so that they understand the social contract and the need to give to the state to build a civil society. We have all these discussions with them and at the end of the day, many of them see reasons and I am talking about the illiterates in the state, they see reasons and the older ones reveal the tales of the past when the days of our founding fathers like the Awolowos, Azikiwes on how taxation played a greater part in developing the state. So, they understand that to develop, we need to embrace payment of tax, but as I said, many of them do not know how to go about it.

We have a special department called Tax Education Enlightenment Team (TEET), they go out every day into the nooks and crannies of Lagos State to educate the taxpayers and we also have members of staff and the major dialects and when they go to a northern dominated market, we speak to them in Hausa and when we go to a Yoruba-dominated market, we speak to them in Yoruba and when we go to the Alabas of this world, we have staff who speak Igbo to try and enlighten taxpayers. So, tax enlightenment is very key to our operations. Tax illiteracy is a big problem and it is one of the constraints we have and we try to overcome all those things and the other thing that is a constraint is that of enforcement.

It is very difficult for us to get court orders against the delinquent taxpayers or people who just evade taxes outright. We cannot just go to someone’s office and shut their operations down. We have series of letters and we send out assessment while many of these taxpayers do not even respond, so for us to enforce those outstanding liabilities or those liabilities, we have to go to the law courts and it has been a very difficult and tedious process to get court orders, warrants against these delinquent debtors.

In that regard, will you advocate for a special court to address this challenge?
We have been advocating to the administration on the need to have a revenue court, but on the side of the judiciary, their response has always been that we have tax judges and magistrates in all the high court so they want us to work through them rather than create a special court which they say is not so popular anymore. But we will continue to advocate to the Chief Judge and the Ministry of Justice on how they can accommodate us in that regard so that we can get dispensation of matters, but there are other means of tax adjudication such as tax appeal tribunal that is in place and we take a lot of cases to them because we have a position on what taxes should be and the intended taxpayer has his own idea of how their liability should be based on their income.

But a lot of the cases, a lot of people do not declare or disclose their real income and many people just feel that they can donate to the government what they feel like, so they self-assess themselves and really understate these amounts. We have a self-assessment system where people are supposed to self-assess and pay and we even advocate to them to pay what they feel they are owing, then we can carry out our investigation and if we feel that you have under-declared those taxes, we will send you additional assessments and if you then refuse to pay up, that is when we will go to court because we are a civil society and we have to live by all the rules of engagement which is what we do, so enforcement is a problem.

We introduced the e-tax and we also have the Ibile hub application and with these applications and we are going about with the devices and bringing people into the net and on the spot we are registering people, but for the e-tax, we expect people to interact with the platform themselves, it is another way of trying to reduce corruption while also reducing human interface. If people are interfacing with machines, probably they feel better that the machine is serving them based on what they want to record. So, in that regard, as a unique identifier, we expect people to include their NIN or Bank Verification Number (BVN).  Before NIN was fully established, it was BVN and a lot of people did not want to include their BVN while registering, not necessary for safety reasons.

But they feel that if we have their BVN, we are going to have more access to the income they earn. So, we had to go on a serious enlightenment and all the top accounting firms in the state spoke to them and we also appealed to them to help us spread it to their clients that we are not after anything, but what we just want is to leverage on the fact that it is done on biometrics because somebody can be Moshood Olawale Kashimawo Abiola and the machine will not recognise and jump into conclusion if you only put in Olawale Abiola because the way the machines are, you must put the exact name for it to recognise you.

In the past, many people had several taxpayers’ IDs and now that we are using only this biometrics, it can only identify one person, no two people have the same fingerprint, so we are certain that we are dealing with the same person, but for the fact they are afraid of putting their BVN, it made it more difficult to get people to register on e-tax, but now that it is NIN, many of them are willing to do the registration so lack of understanding of how they can even use the technology to their advantage is also another constraint and we can only improve through enlightenment and part of our constraints in recent times has been the pandemic.

With Covid, it limited our mobility in terms of reaching out to taxpayers physically and it also led to the closure of a lot of businesses especially SMEs which should be the engine of economic growth. Many of them shut down while some during the lockdown were forced to reduce their business activities and with businesses closing down and unemployment on the increase, how do we improve on collecting taxes at the state level and sub-national? You only deal with individuals whereas the FIRS deals with corporate organisations. So, if unemployment goes up, it is going to have a direct effect and impact on collection of taxes because taxes are based on employment income and other types of income,  the pandemic has been a major constraint.

But we thank God and also the global impact on the economy cannot be ruled out. There is a global recession and it impacts again on employment, businesses and trading activities. It directly affects how we operate and other constraints can be the general unprofessional conduct of stakeholders not just in-house, but even externally, people not declaring appropriate income for instance is very unprofessional and it has a negative impact on collection of taxes, so those are our major constraints.

What’s the update on the VAT Act signed into law last year, has the implementation commenced?
Definitely, you will be on the same page with the Lagos State government on this issue, but it’s just okay to know your perspectives on the VAT war.

We are an agency and we are part of the state so we have to align our thoughts.  At the risk of talking about something that should be subjudice, I will just say very limited things because of all the court cases that are ongoing. Personally, as part of the agency and as part of the Lagos State government, we all believe that the issue of VAT should be a residual matter and should not be on the exclusive list. The state in its infinite wisdom and within its right has enacted the VAT law and the law has come to stay, now we are emboldened by the fact that we have a Consumption Tax Law, Hotel Occupancy and Restaurant Consumption (HORC) Act which are also an indirect tax like a Sales Tax.

It is exactly the same as VAT and when we enacted that legislation, we had a lot of push back from all over including Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS). The state was taken to court and it was pronounced even at the Supreme Court that it was an illegal tax, but it was restricted to the hospitality sector. So, if it is the same, why don’t we just extend it to other sectors within the state, so that is our thinking. On whether we have started implementing it, we are yet to implement it, but we are working towards implementation, the law is out, but the regulation is not yet out because it is the regulation that actually guides how you implement the law and once you have the regulation out and passed by the House of Assembly, we would commence immediate implementation or rather after stakeholders’ engagement because we have to educate and enlighten people to make them understand why we are coming out with  the VAT law. It is a valid and legal law and it is not being challenged by anybody and even though it is challenged, we can stand before any law court and defend that VAT Act.

It has been reported that your agency collects N40 billion monthly, but many believe you actually do more but under-declare. The question here is: does your monthly collection overlap into the next month or you actually have that amount at the end of every month-end?

Everything comes through enlightenment and education as I have been saying all along. It is not in our interest to under declare, we want to beat our chest and we want to be proud about what we are doing and we also want to be accountable for everything. So, it is not even in our interest to under declare. I will also go ahead to tell you that we do not collect cash, everything is automated and it goes directly into the state’s account and the state account is subject to a lot of scrutiny. The Accountant General of the Federation, we have the State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) Programme, we have the World Bank and we also have a lot of multilateral agencies who have special interest in Lagos that come to make sure that there is integrity in what is being pronounced and of course like any other organisation, we have our cut-off points and once an item falls in January, it cannot fall in February or we cannot remove an item from January at the end of the month.

The accounts of the state are reconciled and we even have reconciliation exercises.  In order that we can be on the same page, our figures exactly tally so that it does not look like the state is announcing one figure while LIRS is announcing another. We have end of month reconciliation whereby all the hanging items and reconciling items because at times a taxpayer can actually make a payment and some banks are mischievous as they will not give you value for that payment for a few days and meanwhile, the taxpayer would have reported that he has made payment and we have taken that into account. But all these kinds of items would fall in the reconciling items and if we have not received value from the bank, definitely we will not include it till it is credited into our account. So there is no truth whatsoever in that statement. Accountability is key and with technology, it improves accountability and integrity of all the figures so that anybody can take that to the bank.

What message and advice do you have for tax defaulters?
For tax defaulters, the main thing is that there is nowhere to hide. Ultimately, there will be nowhere to hide and with technology that the state is embracing, more and more people will come into the tax net and apart from all these strategies we are making, increasingly, there are more collaborations between all the MDAs, the LIRS and all the different ministries. The Ministry of Health, Physical Planning, motor vehicle registration and the like. We are working towards big data and with big data very few people will be able to hide except you do not do anything that is in the public space. If you buy a vehicle, you will register the vehicle and with that you are inside the tax net; if you buy a land or you want to renovate or build a house, tax adequacy is one thing, but tax compliance is the key thing we chase first before we go to adequacy.

So we all talk about big data now, artificial intelligence, machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT) and through IoT. If you write an article ten years ago and you do not like that article, you cannot get rid of it. It is there on the net and people will always remember. So this philosophy is what we are adopting and we are looking at all the economic footprints all across the state once you are captured. We are no longer working in silos, because in the past, the Ministry of Education had their own information while the others have theirs too, but if we integrate everything fully, then one way or the other everybody is seen within the unit, so this integration and moving towards big data through the adoption of technology, there is going to be very few places.

The Ministry of Housing has a huge project on real estate practitioners where all landlords and tenants are going to be in their database so are you not going to be in the tax net? Automatically, we are going to integrate with the Ministry of Housing and so on and so forth and there are so many other ministries. So, it is a warning to all tax defaulters to register and start to file returns and pay their taxes because the long arm of the law will soon catch up with them and on the other side, without threatening them.

 They should see themselves as responsible members of the society and we want to build a megacity, a thriving city, a city that will work for all of us and the only way we can achieve that objective is through payment of taxes in the most sustainable form for revenue generation for any society. Many people go to the United States and the United Kingdom and they marvel at good roads, good health care, good schools and these are the same people when they come back to Nigeria they evade taxes, they appreciate the UK government, but they do not want to appreciate their government back home and they say charity begins at home, so we appeal to everybody to register and pay their taxes.