United State Agency International Development (USAID), State2State activity has trained the officials of Adamawa internal revenue service on tax audit and investigation for effective service delivery.
Speaking at the three-day training in Yola, State2State acting team lead in Adamawa, Ms Suzanne Myada, said the key objectives of the training is to increase efficiency of subnational government operations and improve subnational government responsiveness to citizens needs.
She said that the focus area is improving service delivery in education, heath, Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) aim to improve the standard of leaving in the state.
“Since 2021 State2State is complementing the effort of the state government by building capacity of people on the need for them to do better,” she said.
According to her, other areas include Gender and Social Inclusion, conflict mitigation and mainstreamed in all their inventions.
Myada encouraged the participants to actively participate and apply the manual as a guide effectively and efficiently.
Mr Akinsanya Niyi, the resource person said, the objectives of the tax and investigation is to improve taxpayer’s compliance, fairness in the tax system and to ensure accuracy of taxpayer’s declaration.
“Tax audit is a verification of a taxpayer’s income tax returns by the tax authority.
“A tax investigation is a probe into a taxpayer’s finances and taxation to detect and penalize tax fraud.
“A tax audit usually involves a visit and a review of tax records, while a tax investigation usually starts with a letter asking for information,” he said.
Niyi charged the participants to be knowledgeable in all the areas of law principles and understand the risk associated with what they are going to do in the field.
Mr Iheanyi Iheke, State2State’s conflict specialist urged the participants to be conflict sensitive in discharge of their duties to avoid any challenges that may come up.
Iheke advised them to understand the laws, principles and guidelines for audits for effective service delivery and the avoidance of conflict.
Mr Maxwell Thaddawus, Director Tax Audit and special investigation, Adamawa Internal Revenue Service lauded USAID for the capacity building and assured to step down the knowledge acquired to local government tax collectors and taxpayers.
He said, “This will help improve compliance and internally generated revenue for the development of the state.”
