Former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Farms is among nearly 20, 000 other firms that the tax authorities have indicted in a major expose on tax defaulters.
Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) says popular musician David Adeleke’s Davido Music Worldwide Ltd, popular supermarket chain, Addide, and a host of other publicly-quoted and privately-held businesses have been listed among the 19,901 consolidated tax defaulters published by the FIRS on its website.
FIRS Executive Chairman, Babatunde Fowler, this week replied a query over worsening tax generation, published the list of the consolidated tax defaulters.
Obasanjo Farms Ltd. is listed as No. 17705 on the list, Davido Music Worldwide as 2387, while five outlets of Addide supermarket chains located on Lagos mainland areas of Oko-Oba, Ekoro, Fagba and Itire occupy numbers 13137-13141.
President Muhammadu Buhari through his Chief of staff, Abba Kyari, had queried Fowler over alleged discrepancies in tax collections from 2015 to 2018.
A letter dated August 8, 2019, and addressed to the FIRS chairman, which was signed by Kyari, had asked Fowler to explain reasons for ‘significant’ variances in budgeted collections and actual collections of tax in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.
In the concerned years, the actual amount collected as tax had fallen below the budgeted target.
In 2015, actual collection was N3.7tn, while the budgeted target was N4.5tn.
Shortfall also occurred in 2016, when actual collection was N3.307tn, less than the N4.95tn budgeted target.
In 2017, FIRS collected a total of N4.027tn, less than the set target of N4.89tn. In 2018, actual collection was N5.32tn, while the budgeted target was N6.7tn.
Fowler was appointed chairman of the FIRS in August 2015.
