The Chairman of Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mr. Muhammad Nami, has warned tax administrators that ICT based inventions like Blockchain, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence that were embedded in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, were greatly undermining the sector.
Nami who at a three-day Capacity Building Seminar for tax administrators from West African countries in Abuja on Tuesday, said disruptive tendencies were undermining tax collection.
The seminar was organised by West Africa Tax Administration Forum (WATAF), and the Inter-American Center for Tax Administrations (CIAT).
The FIRS boss noted that while these technological innovations were beneficial to revenue agencies in their assigned national task, they were also detrimental to effective tax collection.
According to him, “such technologies have disruptive tendencies because they have created new, fluid, hard-to-trace ways of doing business that makes it difficult for revenue agencies to tax their transactions.
“In the current world, disruptive technological innovations such as Blockchain technology, Machine Learning and the whole gamut of Artificial Intelligence (AI), have dire consequences for developing economies in terms of revenue loss and high staff turnover.
“The effects are also in the areas of staff dissatisfaction and deliberate `Head hunting’ of the very best of our employees by private entities which continue to deplete our work force.
“It is important for us as managers of human resources in tax administrations, to recognise the dynamics of changes occurring in the world in terms of the way businesses are being done and reported.
“This is with a view to adjusting accordingly in order for these revenue agencies to meet their mandates to the government and people of their respective nations”.
