CAC, FIRS strengthen collaboration for economic growth

The Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) are strengthening their existing collaboration to ensure economic growth.

Registrar-General of the CAC, Mr Hussaini Magaji, said this on Thursday in Abuja when he visited the FIRS Executive Chairman, Mr Zacch Adedeji.

Magaji said the visit was to familiarise and further cement already existing collaboration between the CAC and the FIRS.

Speaking on CAC’s mandate vis-à-vis its relationship with the FIRS, Magaji said the CAC had created a platform for integration with the FIRS, thereby making the process of business registration seamless.

He emphasised the need for greater cooperation and collaboration between the two agencies that are strategic to national economy, especially as it relates to revenue generation.

Magaji said it was pertinent to identify and formalise the enormous number of unregistered online businesses to boost the country’s revenue.

Responding, the FIRS chairman stressed the need to have a robust inter-agency relationship to make FIRS to perform better.

Adedeji said while the CAC registered and nurtured companies, the FIRS awaited the companies to mature before it began to assess them.

He added that the FIRS relied on the CAC to drive voluntary compliance by obtaining data from the former.

He noted that both agencies needed to reinvigorate their existing standing technical committee to interface more often to cement their long-standing relationship and to engender capacity building.

Also speaking, the Coordinating Director, Digital and Information Support Group of the FIRS, Ms Chiaka Ben-Obi, said Tax Identification Numbers (TINs) were now generated for all entities upon registration.

Ben-Obi said this was a departure from the past when the FIRS supplied the CAC with TIN.

While appreciating the CAC for the introduction of online electronic submission of audited accounts, she said the FIRS was studying the possibility of having an interface with the CAC in that regard.