The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has described voluntary compliance as the sustainable way to improve the country's tax revenues.

Tayo Koleosho, Chief of Staff to the Executive Chairman of FIRS, stated this during a two-day E-Invoice Post Go-Live workshop, highlighting the limitations of audit to drive tax compliance.

He described E-invoicing as an innovative method to reduce the number of audits carried out by taxpayers.

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"I think voluntary compliance is a key and the executive chairman of FIRS is determined to increase the use of this data to drive voluntary compliance and less focus on audits and the destructive nature that it can bring to business," he said.

He underscored the importance of digitisation in driving tax compliance, saying the country adopted E-invoicing to meet global practice in the tax ecosystem.

"As the economy is growing, it will help us to increase our voluntary compliance and drive revenue collection for the country.

"So there is a direct correlation between more voluntary compliance, which always increases the collection ability of the service and then provides more revenue for development for the country," he said

He noted that the agency has tightened the transaction process on the E-invoicing platform to prevent cybercrime with the support of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).

"So that protection is key and we need to give confidence to our customers, the taxpayers. So that's why we make sure that the vetting process includes that integration and background and assessment by NITDA and make sure that everybody has their data protection, regulation and framework all in place," he said.

He stressed that the role of the 16 access point providers is to help to transmit the data of taxpayers to their systems.