TETFund targets N500bn education tax in 2021

Justice C.J. Anekes of the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos on Friday granted permission to a former governor of Ekiti State

The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), has set a target of N500 billion education tax collection for the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, in 2021.

Chairman, TETFund Board of Trustees, Kashim Imam, who disclosed this at the 2020 TETFund/FIRS Joint Interactive Forum in Ilorin, Kwara State, said the new target was necessary as the number of beneficiary public institutions has risen to 226.

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Imam said the fund was on course to surpass the N277 billion mark set for 2020, adding that as at September, education tax collection had already hit N251 billion, and that the figure could rise up to N300 billion by the end of December 2020, a statament by the Fund said.

“I am happy to report that for about two to three years now we have been in the region of N250 billion.

He sais: “As at the end of September, collection was in the region of N251 billion; if we are lucky, we may actually hit N300 billion by 31st of December.”

‘We have set a new target already for 2021 and that target is the sun of N500 billion. Considering the magnitude of the challenges facing tertiary education in Nigeria, we cannot afford to do less,” he added.

Speaking on the theme of the forum titled, “New Trust in Sustaining the EDT Collection During Covid-19 Pandemic for Effective Service Delivery of the Mandate of the Fun,” he said TETFund was not comfortable with just sustaining collection as each year the fund makes effort to ensure improvement in its tax collection.

In his remarks, the Executive Chairman, FIRS, Muhammad Nami, who was represented by the FIRS Director in charge of Ondo, Ekiti and Kwara, Mr Ishola Akingbode, said the agency moved from zero tax activities to perform greatly in 2013, adding that the collection for 2020 will exceed what was collected previously.

He said a lot of modalities are put in place to ensure seamless collection of the 2 per cent education tax collection, adding that despite being a difficult year, FIRS has put machinery in place to ensure that taxes are collected.

Also speaking, the Executive Secretary of TETFund, Prof Suleiman Bogoro, stressed the need to increase the drive for education tax collection as the Covid-19 pandemic has affected economic activities and could likely effect education tax.

Represented by the Director Finance, Idris Saidu, said since 2013, when education tax collection rose to N279 billion, FIRS has been striving to achieve the annual 2 per cent education tax collections.

He said the fund was taking practical steps to put the nation on a revolutionary path of a knowledge-based economy by ensuring increase of the national research fund to N7.5, establishment of 12 centres of excellence and inauguration of a standing Committee on R&D to facilitate and accelerate the outcome of research.