The Lagos tax organisation, Lagos Inland Revenue Service (LIRS) says it generated N25 billion through taxation in April, the period when there was total lockdown.
According to LIRS, the service leveraged on technology to achieve the feat.
The Head of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) of the service, Rasheed Olu-Ajayi, revealed this to NAN during an exclusive interview on Zoom on Saturday.
“What we did was to have a business continuity plan by documenting product, events with which we continue to work.
“So, we invoked technology tools, with lots of our staff, working from home but chasing taxpayers.
“We were able to invoke a good amount of money, not a case of ground zero.
“Nobody envisages that there would be a time that the whole globe would be lockdown and people would not be able to do anything.
“We were able to collect N25 billion in April when there was total lockdown,’’ he said.
According to him, this is a good achievement.
Olu-Ajayi said LIRS, as an agency of Lagos State Government, has the responsibility of collecting taxes and in some cases, business development taxes.
He said that tax collection is primarily the agency assignment.
He said that without tax collection, the development projects in education, road and easing of traffic congestion among others being executed by the state government would not have been possible.
He said that was why the LIRS thought outside the box by exploring ICT to achieve the fit in revenue generation during the total lockdown.
