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The Akwa Ibom State Internal Revenue Service, AKIRS, has partnered the International Monetary Fund, IMF, to train her revenue staff on ways to improve tax administration in the state.

The partnership between AKIRS and IMF has given birth to a-10 day virtual Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool (TADAT). The TADAT training was declared opened by the chairman of the Akwa Ibom State Internal Revenue Service, AKIRS, Mr Okon Okon, on Monday 10th August at the revenue house, Uyo.

During the opening ceremony for the training, resource persons, Mr Mambo Nyanga, a senior economist working in the fiscal department, IMF, was joined from IMF secretariat in Washington D.C; Justine Nanziri, a renowned tax administrator Uganda, was joined from Kampala; and Folashade Coker, a tax administrator with the Lagos State Internal Revenue Services, was joined from Lagos.

Speaking on the import of the training, chairman of AKIRS said, it will enhance the capacity of the agency’s tax staff and help them align their practices with international standards.

“This training will build our own internal capacity in the system to be able to deliver more. It’s also to benchmark and align our conducts to international best practices, you know this is an IMF programme and this training is also done for other countries, because we are trying to build a convergence between the internal revenue administration in Akwa Ibom state and what is happening globally.”

The chief tax officer of the state said he considered Akwa Ibom state’s participation in the TADAT training very important because the knowledge gained will add value to the tax agency’s institutional capacity building effort and her strivings for effective service delivery and rapid growth of IGR of the state.

Okon thanked Governor Udom Emmanuel for funding reforms and capacity building in the revenue service of Akwa Ibom state.

He lauded IMF for introducing the Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool to aid capacity building and assessment of performance, and for granting AKIRS opportunity to benefit from the programme.

The 10 days virtual training is structured to include an assessment exams on the closing date, which is August 21.

Course contents for the training show that participants would be taken on, “Effective management of compliance risks and institutional risks”, “Integrity of registered taxpayer base”, “Voluntary compliance”, “Accountability and Transparency”.