The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Tax evasion

  • Lagos discovers ‘5.5m tax evaders’

    Lagos discovers ‘5.5m tax evaders’

    The Lagos State Commissioner for Finance, Mr. Tokunbo Abiru, on Thursday said that over 5.5 million taxable individuals in the informal sector had not been paying taxes to the state.

    Abiru said this in Lagos at the 3rd Annual Lecture and Inauguration of the Public Service Chapter of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) in Lagos.

    He said there were eight million taxable individuals in the informal sector in the state, adding that only 2.5 million were captured in the tax net, leaving 5.5 million.

    “Taxation is the major bedrock of this present administration as the internally generated revenue almost doubled the allocation from the Federal Government.

    “The government is working hard to capture the other defaulting individuals and businesses into the net for proper collation,’’ the News Agency of Nigeria quoted the commissioner as saying at the gathering.

    Also speaking at the event, the President of ICAN, Mr. Doyin Owolabi, urged traders to report fake officials who were collecting taxes from them.

    “Lagos is the commercial nerve centre of the country, so there are people expecting a lot from the government, but are not willing to pay their tax.

    “Some are also complaining that taxes are being collected from them by some officials, but most of the funds do not get to the government’s purse.

    “Individuals in the informal sector should endeavour to report such fake officials to the appropriate sectors so that they won’t have to pay taxes twice, ‘’he said.

     

  • Reps summon Access Bank over tax evasion

    Reps summon Access Bank over tax evasion

    The House of Representatives Committee on Finance has summoned the management of Access Bank Plc over the bank’s tax records.

    According to the Chairman of the committee, Abdulmumin Jibrin, who said the committee has already forwarded letters of invitation to Access Bank and other affected institutions ahead of the investigative hearings, the bank is to be investigated for tax evasion.

    The investigative hearing would commence after the two-week break that commenced last Thursday.

    “After preliminary investigation, we have been able to establish that Access Bank Plc has a lot of inconsistencies in its tax remittances over several years. There is a huge inconsistency in their annual returns, audited accounts and financials.

    “As a matter of fact, in some instances they were found to have concealed their balance sheet and even doctored it to evade taxes,” Jibrin said.

     

  • Lagos seals Nicon Hotels over tax evasion

    Lagos seals Nicon Hotels over tax evasion

    The Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) has sealed Nicon Hotels Limited, Lekki, Lagos, for allegedly failing to remit taxes amounting to N14.4 million to the state government.

    The Head of Distrain Unit of LIRS, Mrs. Folasade Coker-Afolayan, told the News Agency of Nigeria, on Thursday in Lagos, that the debt had accrued since 2010.

    Coker-Afolayan said the amount was the workers’ income tax, which the management failed to remit to the state government.

    “We decided to seal Nicon Hotel because it owed the Lagos State Government N14.4 million. The amount is the workers’ income tax for 2010.

    “The hotel will not be reopened for business until the tax liability is remitted,” she said.

    Coker-Afolayan said the state government had written the management of the hotel on the need to remit the tax.

    According to her, the Distrain Unit of the LIRS had no alternative than to seal the hotel when the management failed to respond to its request.

    She reiterated that payment of tax is the civic responsibility of everyone to enable any government provides infrastructure for its citizens.

    The team leader urged companies to remit their taxes promptly to avoid being sealed.