Agency moves to enforce tax policy

Imposes N5m fine for fake tax papers

THE era when Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) would deduct their workers’ tax contributions (Pay-As-You-Earn) and then misappropriate    them instead of remitting same to the government’s coffers through the appropriate tax authorities are now over.

Reason: The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) said yesterday that it had fully commenced the enforcement of the Personal Income Tax Act (PITA) signed into law in June last year.

As a consequence of this development, the tax agency said it had finalised discussion with the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF) to commence the deduction of budgetary allocations to MDAs from source in order to recover the more than N170 billion cumulative tax debt by the MDAs since 2004 with the attendant serious negative implication on the already controversial 2012 budgetary implementation.

This plan by the tax agency was unveiled in Abuja yesterday at a forum to sensitise key MDAs personnel on the provisions of the new law and also prepare them for the expected budgetary deductions from source.

The Acting Executive Chairman of the FIRS, Alhaji Kabir Mashi, told the MDAs representatives at the forum that, “The workshop is a follow-up action of the signing into law of the PITA (Amendment) Act, 2011 by the President and Commander-In-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on 14th of June, 2011.”

Commenting on the gains of the new PITA, the Coordinating Director of the FIRS Field Operations Group, Mr. Samuel S. Ogungbesan, highlighted some of the changes to the Act to include the following provisions:

• Penalties for failure to confirm Tax Clearance Certificate (TCC) from the tax authorities that issued same carries a penalty of N5 million fine or imprisonment for three years or both fine and imprisonment;

• Introduction of a consolidated Relief Allowance of N200,000 or one per cent of gross salary whichever is higher plus 20 per cent of gross salary;

• All tax payers are now mandatorily required to file self-assessment of their income tax returns; and

• The Accountant-General is now empowered to deduct at source from budgetary allocation to MDAs amount of tax that the MDAs fail to deduct and remit to the relevant tax authority.

Saying that it was imperative that the personnel were aware of the changes to avoid any pitfalls, he told them that ignorance of the law was no excuse.