The Federal Government is eyeing a whooping one trillion Naira revenue generation from from stamp duty collection annually.

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) alone remitted N66 billion as stamp duty revenue into the federation account between January to May this year.

Stamp duties remitted by Money Deposit Banks (MDBs) was N20.00bn, stamp duties revenue from stamping of instruments was 7.90bn, amount hitherto warehoused with CBN now remitted to Federation Account was N39.00bn and the total stamp duty remitted into Federation Account from January, 2020 – May, 2020 was N66.00bn.”

According to Boss Mustapha, secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), at the inauguration of the inter-ministerial committee on audit and recovery of stamp duty; stamp duty collection could generate as high as N1 trillion annually.

Mustapha noted that the government decided to widen the revenue base by activating the stamp duty collection which has been neglected for more than 20 years.

“This has become more important now that the projected revenue realizable from all sources available to the government as per our 2020 budget estimates is far lower than the projected expenses leading to a budget deficit of over N5 trillion,” Mustapha said.

“The government has recognized the fact that for meaningful development to be achieved, it has to look inwards to use every available means to shore up its revenue-generating capacity. For too long the country has depended on oil as the main cash cow of the economy even though it is richly endowed with other viable revenue yielding sources.

“In the face of dwindling oil revenue, and the global shift away from oil-dependent technological products, it is even more compelling now to begin to think out of the box in order to safeguard the future of our country.

“There is an assurance that the collection from stamp duty will be second to oil revenue, as it has the potential to yield up to a trillion naira revenue annually if properly harnessed.

“The inter-ministerial audit and recover committee, in essence, is therefore expected to judiciously undertake an audit and recover, on behalf of the government, all stamp duties charged from January 2016 to date but yet to be remitted by the relevant ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), money deposit banks (MDBs) and Nigerian Inter-Bank Settlement System PLC (NIBSS), amongst others.”