Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Nigeria: Biometrics Project to Help Boost State Revenue

Following yesterday's news about how Nigeria is using biometrics to stem loss and abuse on the spending side of the government's finances, comes this article addressing efforts using biometrics on the revenue side.

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has explained how the Unique Taxpayer Identification Number (U-TIN) could shore up states' revenue (allAfrica.com)
This would plug leakages, curb tax evasion and substantially contain tax shopping, which is in vogue in Nigeria today.

The FIRS boss further explained that under the U-TIN project, which had been approved by the National Economic Council (NEC), (consisting of all state governors), over 215 Joint Tax Board staff had been trained and 370 desktops installed.

Other steps towards the realisation of the project include procurement of 185 static biometric registration equipment and 108 (3 per senatorial zone per state) mobile registration equipment as well as 37 Midrange Servers.