President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday said efforts are being accelerated to ensure all taxable Nigerians declare their incomes and pay the right taxes to the appropriate authorities.
Buhari made this known when he presented the 2023 Appropriation Bill of N20.52 trillion to the joint session of the National Assembly in Abuja.
The president identified revenue shortfall as the greatest threat to Nigeria’s fiscal viability, saying that special attention will also be given to revenue generating agencies.
“Revenue shortfalls remain the greatest threat to Nigeria’s fiscal viability. We have therefore accelerated efforts towards ensuring that all taxable Nigerians declare income from all sources and pay taxes due to the appropriate authorities.
“We are also monitoring the internally generated revenues of agencies of government to ensure they are appropriately accounted for and remitted to the Consolidated Revenue Fund,’’ he said.
Buhari said he is happy to report that the revenue collection and expenditure management reforms are yielding positive results as reflected in non-oil revenue performance.
According to him, while we continue to implement revenue administration reforms and improve our collection efficiency, we urgently need to find new ways of generating revenue.
“As we seek to grow our government revenues, we must also focus on the efficiency of utilisation of our limited resources.
“Critical steps we are taking include immediate implementation of additional measures towards reducing the cost of governance and the discontinuation of fuel subsidy in 2023 as announced earlier.
“We are however mindful of the fact that reducing government spending too drastically can be socially destabilising, and so will continue to implement programmes to support the more vulnerable segments of society,’’ he said.
The National assembly had approved the medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) — parameters on which the 2023 budget will be framed.
While presenting the details, Buhari said the 2023 transition budget was designed to address critical issues and lay a solid foundation for the incoming administration.