Lagos State Internal Revenue Service {LIRS} – All You Need To Know

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Are you looking for information about the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS)? Then, you are in the right place.

As a good citizen of a State, most especially states like Lagos State, it is important for you to have first-class information on the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service to know where your tax is going and what they are doing with the tax.

Therefore, most of those who work in a firm or corporate organization pay taxes via automatic deductions from their salaries by Section 57 of the Person Income Tax Act (PITA) of 1993. For breakage of the law, it is usually considered as a serious offense against the Law.

Just like with many other branches of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Lagos State Internal Revenue Service is the branch of FIRS in Lagos State saddled with the responsibility of collecting taxes, implementing a scheme(s) that will improve tax collection in the state, etc.

Therefore, Lagos State Internal Revenue Service, being an arm of the Lagos State Government, works to divert the dependence of Lagos State on federal allocations from the Federal Government by organizing an effective and efficient means of tax collection via different scheme implementation.

Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS)- All You Need To Know

Since its inception, Lagos State Internal Revenue Service has been a lookup for other state’s internal revenue as it implements many schemes that allow for proper functioning. Some of the schemes implemented are The Convenience Scheme, self-assessment filling system, etc. Through these schemes, the agency has been able to allow for structural development in the State as it portrays to be a major funding system for the State Government. The Self-assessment filling system is the first of its kind in Africa was designed for self-employed individuals within Lagos State.

Currently headed by Mr. Olufolarin Ogunsanwo who was appointed by Governor Ambode, the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service has proven to be a strategic means of generating funds for the State Government as it had successfully improved the Internally Generated Funds (IGF) from the monthly average of about 600 million in 1999 to approximately 17 Billion Naira in 2011. This is the major backbone of the independence of Lagos State Government on the allocations from the Federal Government.

The Lagos State, Internal Revenue Service, introduced a new, faster and easier way of issuing a tax clearance certificate (TCC) which is called the Electronic Tax Clearance Certificate (e-TCC). The main objective of creating the e-TCC is to remove all loopholes and block all leakages in the tax generating system. Before now, poor identification of taxpayers, a large level of malpractices and fraud, tax evasion, etc. are examples of the loopholes and leakages blocked.

Lagos State Internal Revenue Service LIRS

However, before you can get your Electronic Tax Clearance Certificate, you have to follow some procedures which include the following

You can either go to any Tax Station or Revenue Service or the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service Headquarter or visit lasg-ebs-rcm.com to register.
If it is online, you will be required to fill an online form, which after filling will be printed out for submission.
Attach two passports and submit it to the nearest Revenue Station
After seven working days (Monday to Friday), you will have your e-TCC issued to you.
To check for the originality of the e-TCC issued to you, it has the following characteristics
It has a small chip on the front
A magnetic strip at the back.
It carries your picture as the taxpayer
It also carries other things like the Logo of the State, The Coats of Arms and a web-enabled electronic customized Application Programming Interface (API)

Also, to make payment into the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service, there are some procedures that need to be followed, and they include the following

You, as a payer, will walk into any designated banks located in the State to get the deposit slip for payment.
Submit it to a bank officer who will make use of the E-Pay Application and therefore captures your payment details.
Then, after some time, you will be given an Automated Revenue Receipt after the official must have synchronized the transactions.

In case you don’t want to make payment via the above method but rather with your Tax Card, there is still another method for you to pay. Follow the following instructions

You will walk into one of the designated banks with your Tax Card and Bank Card
Submit your Tax Card to one of the bank officials for payment
Then, he or she will insert your card into one of the card readers and also insert the bank card into another card reader.
Then, the bank official will capture the details on both the card reader and synchronize the readers. Then, he or she will return your cards to you

However, the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service doesn’t want Lagosians to stress themselves by going into the banks and join the long queue for the payment of taxes can now be done online. All you have to do is to visit their web page (www.lirs.gov.ng) and follow the instructions on the page.

Recently, the agency launched an e-filling portal for submission of Employers’ Tax Returns (Form H1) by the Personal Income Tax Act (PITA) Cap P8 LFN 2004 (as amended). This platform can be accessed from the Lagos State Internal Revenue Web page, and it has been reported to be effectively active. There has been a restriction to the collection of hard copies returns to make the platform more active.

For proper orderliness, the agency has ordered that taxpayers should only upload only one set of returns. But in some cases where the company wishes to render separate returns for its local and expatriate employees, the head of the company is expected to forward a letter to the Director of Personal Income Tax of the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service or visit the Headquarter of the Personal Income Tax for further guidance by a dedicated staff.

As Lagos State is a megacity, the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service is very much determined to meet its needs as it keeps re-strategizing its schemes and modus operandi. Currently, the agency has put in place services that make the process easier like tax types (defines the various types of tax collected by the different taxation bodies), tax systems (which describes the methods of Tax Administration which could be proportional, progressive or regressive), Tax Collection (the measures which include tax policies and tax laws, put in place by a statutory government institution for the purpose of generating and aggregating revenue for the Government and Tax Legislation (which are the acts governing taxation in Nigeria for various tax types).

To make the situation a better one, the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) has embedded in their platform a tax complaint section that will allow you to complain about issues revolving about the payment of your taxes. To access the section, kindly visit www.lasg-ebs-rcm.com on which you will be able to select “Comments and Complaints’ button.

With the information given above, I assure you that you will not encounter any process during either the process of acquiring a new e-TCC, tax Card or during the payment. This is because the information was gotten through reliable sources that you can count on. Examples of the sources are interviews with the Director, information on the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service Webpage and many other sources of data collection.

For further inquiries, you can email the Revenue Service at info@lirs.gov.ng or call them on 0 (700) 225-55477. You can also reach them on helpdesk@ebsrcm.com or call 0708-011-2233 or 0708-044-5566

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Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS)- All You Need To Know

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