The Federal Inland Revenue Service has engaged the players in the oil & gas sector of Nigeria on early integration into the Merchant Buyers Solution interface, ahead of the rollout of Nigeria’s National E-Invoicing System on July 25.
Speaking during a stakeholders’ engagement session held in Lagos on Monday with players in the oil & gas services/midstream sector, officials of the agency confirmed that the system is fully operational, with several large taxpayers already piloting its use ahead of the July 25, 2025, rollout.
The FIRS says early adoption will enhance compliance, improve transaction transparency, and support seamless tax administration.
One of the Big Four, EY, commenting on Nigeria’s e-invoicing platform, said the development aligns Nigeria with global trends in electronic tax administration and is supported by a real-time pre-validation model influenced by the Pan-European Public Procurement Online e-invoicing framework.
The Merchant Buyer Solution (MBS) platform facilitates the real-time generation, validation, storage and exchange of invoices. Each invoice will receive a unique reference number, aiming to ensure authenticity and enable FIRS to have real-time visibility into transactions.
Speaking at the event, Acting Director of Tax Automation at FIRS, Mike Adoga, noted that while the agency had made considerable progress, there were some challenges which the agency was working on. These ranged from educating taxpayers, building trust, and deploying the massive infrastructure. He noted that the FIRS was addressing these challenges through various stakeholders’ engagement programmes.
“Infrastructure is a challenge because we’ve had to do some forecasting on how much storage, server and compute power we need. If we want every transaction happening in a bank or every call made on a telco reported for tax purposes, you can imagine the scale of infrastructure required,” he said.
In an interview with the FIRS lead consultant on the MBS project, Sodiq Arogundade, at the engagement session, Arogundade stressed that the MBS was designed with an effective application programming interface in a bid to ensure it was user-friendly.
“The system is ready; it’s completely ready. We have several large taxpayers that are piloting at the moment; some are ready to go live with the system. We have set July 25 to go live on the system with the MBS solution. We are also making sure that we accommodate as many innovators as possible to build end-user products,” he said.
He added that while businesses were encouraged to integrate onto the platform, July 25 was not the compliance date.
“Yes, the entire system is to go live, but nothing is mandated. There is no mandatory use of e-invoicing at the moment. I know that the system will be fully available for whoever is interested in enabling their businesses. So, you have that decision to make as a business to be part of it by enabling yourself on the portal. So, the system is ready and is ready to start allowing you to generate electronic invoicing,” he said.
Also, the Director of the Technology Department, FIRS, Richard Kimeku, said the e-invoicing project was designed to ensure transparency and improve the country’s tax administration, noting that it is not a payment platform but a tool for transactions.
“It’s extremely critical in the sense that we’re going to have data on transactions, and it could be used across human resources and security. It is going to be used by businesses to understand the market, purchasing trends and all of that. And more importantly, it’s going to be used by the Federal Revenue Inland Service to know what the transactions are and what the actual tax liability is. “And so, things like turnover suppression will not be there anymore because it is transparent and visible, and it will mean a better view of tax administration,” he said.
SOURCE : PUNCH
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