Akwa Ibom says it’ll improve IGR without increasing tax rates

An official said Akwa Ibom's IGR rose from N34.75 billion in 2022 to N43.18 billion in 2023 under Governor Umo Eno’s administration.

The Akwa Ibom State Government has said that it will improve its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) in the coming year without necessarily increasing the state’s tax rate.

“We are confident that without increasing any tax rate, the IGR of our State would be improved via the application of technology, increased tax awareness campaign, and the expansion of the tax net to capture tax evaders,” the Chairperson of the Akwa Ibom State Internal Revenue Service (AKIRS), Okon Okon, said on Sunday at a press briefing in Uyo.

The state’s revenue service organised the briefing to mark the end of its two-day strategy session for the 2025 fiscal year.

According to Mr Okon, Akwa Ibom’s IGR rose from N34.75 billion in 2022 to N43.18 billion in 2023 under Governor Umo Eno’s administration.

Mr Okon told reporters that the agency would speed up its digitalisation programme next year by further expanding the automation of its process and deepening its data-driven initiatives.

“This is to significantly improve our operational efficiency and increase the State’s IGR without increasing any tax rate,” he said.

“Our focus for the next fiscal year would be to transform our processes from a semi-manual system to full automation. We intend to achieve an end-to-end automation of all our tax processes.

“This was the outcome of the two days strategy session, which ended yesterday,” he said.

“AKIRS plans to roll out electronic assessment, e-tax clearance process, e-filing of tax returns, automation of registration, collection and reporting processes with the ultimate aim of enhancing efficiency in revenue collection, taxpayers’ experience and minimisation of human interference.

“Also, we will upscale our ongoing tax sensitisation and enlightenment campaign to raise awareness on tax payment as a civic responsibility and deepen voluntary compliance.

“We assure our taxpayers that in our efforts to consistently improve on the State’s IGR, we will be cautious not to embark on any initiatives that will stifle business growth or overburden our individual taxpayers but will align with the impressive and favourable disposition of our dear Governor towards promoting SMEs, entrepreneurship and enabling businesses environment.”

‘IGR outlook for 2024 very impressive’

Mr Okon, referencing the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report, said Akwa Ibom is ranked among the top 10 IGR performance in Nigeria in 2023, “coming fourth among the nine States of the Niger Delta in the recently released ranking published by the NBS.”

“Our IGR trend shows significant and steady growth, with about 170 per cent increase over the past six years, rising from N15.96 billion in 2017 to N43.18 billion in 2023.

“This impressive growth is attributable to significant governance reforms by the State Government, improvement in corporate governance, and operational processes by the Board and the business-enabling environment created by the administration of Governor Umo Eno.

“Our IGR outlook for 2024 is very impressive and likely to surpass the set target for the year,” he added.