The Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, will soon go after the bank accounts of defaulting taxpayers, who are raking in billions of naira in Nigeria and are not paying taxes, according to the FIRS Chairman, Tunde Fowler.
In doing that, the FIRS, through all banks in the country, would do substitution on the accounts, Fowler said, adding that over 6,772 of such defaulting billionaires had been identified by the agency through bank data.
Fowler, who disclosed this at a stakeholders’ meeting, according to a statement on Sunday, noted that most of such taxpayers, who had between N1bn and N5bn in their accounts, had no Taxpayer Identification Number, or had TIN but were not filing any tax returns.
The FIRS chairman stated, “What we have done is what we call substitution, which also is in our laws, and which empowers us to appoint the banks as collection agents for taxes. So, all these ones with TIN and no pay, and no TIN and no pay, totaling 6,772 will have their accounts frozen or put under substitution pending when they come forward.
Fowler further explained, “We looked at all businesses, partnerships and corporate accounts that have a minimum turnover of N1bn per annum for the past three years. First of all, the law states clearly that before you open a corporate account, part of the opening documentation is the tax ID. From the 23 banks, we have analysed so far, we have 31,395 records, out of which effectively, minus duplications, we had 18,602.
Read more at: https://realnewsmagazine.net/business/well-go-after-billionaire-tax-defaulters-firs/
