NRS Unveils New Tagline
…Says It Will Meet Revenue Target Without Raising Tax Rates
Service Says It Is Now a Full Revenue Administration, Not Just a Tax Collector
By Patience Ikpeme
The Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) says it is on course to meet its revenue target for the year without increasing any tax rate. It made the statement on Thursday in Abuja at the unveiling of its new tagline, “Inspiring Trust and Sustaining Growth”.
Speaking after the ceremony, the Chief of Staff to the Executive Chairman, Mr Tayo Koleosho, said the service is collecting more because it is working better, not because taxpayers are being charged more. He said the new tax law has settled the rates and that no new increase has been introduced.
“The country is able to collect more revenue without raising the rate, by improving on the efficiency across the entire ecosystem,” he said. He added that digital tools such as electronic invoicing and what he called the new 360 way of paying taxes have cut the time companies lose to tax payment. “We are confident that at the end of the year, we’ll be able to meet the target as set for us by the government,” he said.
A reporter had asked about the effect of the economy’s 3.4 per cent growth in the second quarter on the service’s revenue plans, with only one quarter left in the year. Mr Koleosho said the collection figures show the strength of the economy and the improved productivity of the service.
Explaining the tagline, he said trust is the base of any successful tax system. “For increased revenue generation and collection, Nigerians need to trust the service,” he said. He listed what that trust means for taxpayers: their data must be protected, they must be assessed fairly, and collection must be done in a friendly and professional way.
He said the second half of the tagline points to the President’s plan for a $1 trillion economy by 2030. Reaching that goal, he said, needs all Nigerians to trust the country’s systems and use that trust to keep the economy growing.
Mr Koleosho said trust will also make people more willing to deal with the tax authority. He repeated a saying of the Executive Chairman, Dr Zacch Adedeji, that the service wants to “tax the fruit, not the seed”. By this, he explained, the service wants businesses to grow, because the more they grow, the more the tax authority collects. He recalled that the category once called “Small Tax” was renamed “Emerging” under the Chairman. “Small is Emerging, and Emerging will become Medium, and Medium will become Large,” he said.
The Group Director, Transformation and Strategy, Mr Alfred Okoh, said the new words also show a change in what the institution is. He said the old tagline spoke only about tax, while the new one covers all the revenue the service now handles. “We’re now a new revenue administration, and we’re not just talking taxes,” he said.
He said the service has changed from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to the NRS, and that the NRS Establishment Act signed by the President has widened its duties to include non-tax revenue. He said the service is working to cover more ground so it can earn the trust of taxpayers and help the country grow.
On the service’s own capacity, Mr Koleosho said NRS is moving towards an “80/20” rule set by the Executive Chairman, under which 80 per cent of the service’s work will be done by its own staff. He said the new tax administration system and the electronic invoicing platform were both built in-house, and that the tagline exercise was also done entirely within the service. “The skills are there, and the enthusiasm is there,” he said, adding that the service has a growing number of young, trained staff.Mr Okoh told the gathering that the tagline was picked through a staff competition. On August 10, staff were asked a simple question: “How should the world describe us?” Within six working days, 3,308 entries came in, from all directorates and from all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. The entries were cut to 112, then 85, and then seven finalists. These were reviewed by a committee of Tax Controllers acting as judges, and management then picked the top four.
Every entry was judged on four things: whether it fits the service’s strategy, whether it is original, whether it is clear, and whether it is easy to remember. “We were not looking for clever phrases; we were looking for words capable of carrying a national institution like ours,” Mr Okoh said.
He said a tagline cannot change an institution on its own. Change will only come when taxpayers actually experience the promise behind the words, when staff work across departments, when processes are made simpler, and when decisions are based on data. “When the curtains come down today, the real work begins,” he said. He hoped that Nigerians would one day hear the tagline and think of the NRS at once, the way people link “Just Do It” to Nike or “It pays to pay your tax” to FIRS.
The Director of Change Management, Mrs Olanike Adegoke, said the competition showed that the identity of the service belongs to all its workers and not only to those at the top. “A tagline is more than a phrase,” she said. “It is an expression of who we are, what we stand for, and the identity we seek to build together.” She compared the service to an octopus, saying: “We have many hands and one vision.”
Mr Okoh thanked the tagline working group, the first-round judges, the Tax Controllers who judged the final stage, and the Change Champions Network that spread the call to tax offices across the country. He also praised the IT Directorate, which built the entry platform in-house, and named Mayowa, Michael and Director Nnaji for their work.
