Edo State Government said its deployment of technology and innovation would help it to meet targeted N100billion in Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) by December ending.
It said it had made gains in the area of increasing the state IGR and being able to manage some of the challenging issues with tax evasion and tax avoidance.
Executive Chairman of Edo Internal Revenue Services (EIRS), Otunba Bamidele Bankole-Balogun, in an interview, said the state was making steady progress through audit processes, assessments and good use of the courts.
He said the state’s IGR at the end of August was N74billion and had hit N79billion at press time.
Bankole-Balogun said the Governor Monday Okpebholo administration inherited a virtually non-existent digitalised system.
The EIRS boss said his team was working assiduously to digitalise revenue collections in Edo State such that in future, cash collections and manual collections would be reduced to the barest minimum.
He said: ‘At the moment, Edo State Internal Revenue Service is making tremendous gains in the area of increasing the state’s IGR. There are many components to our taxation and each and every part of this mix is seeing significant improvement as compared to last year in review.
‘There are other companies that are lined up and individuals lined up somewhere. It has been traditionally difficult, as you say, to come to grips with high net worth individuals. They have all the resources to evade and avoid tax, but we’re on top of it.’
He expressed the state’s preparedness for the new tax regime from January 1, 2026.
‘As you know, the new tax regime that will come in on the 1st of January 2026 places very little emphasis on the low income and places a lot of emphasis on the high income. Our objective is to tap into the high net worth individuals who are able to pay much more than the lower income, so as to harness that group and maximise the potential from the group.
‘Digitalisation is on top of it. Tax bodies are on top of it. The FIRS, which will now be the Federal Revenue Service, is also on top of it. Edo State Internal Revenue Service is also on top of it. Technology will help and as you know TINs, BDNs and NINs are going to be critical to doing any financial transaction in Nigeria from the 1st of January. So all of these mechanisms put together, hopefully, will help us to get more from these people who can pay more actually to give everybody a better life.’