The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has announced that it will embark on a nationwide Value Added Tax (VAT) and Withholding Tax (WHT) compliance monitoring exercise.
FIRS Executive Chairman, Zacch Adedeji, disclosed this in a statement on Monday, stating that the exercise will commence on Monday, October 23.
Adedeji said the exercise is aimed at ensuring that taxpayers are complying with their tax obligations and remitting the correct amount of VAT and WHT to the government.
According to him, the exercise is under “Sections 2, 8, 26 and 29 of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (Establishment) Act 2007 (as amended), notice is hereby given to all taxable persons or tax agents including Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of governments at the Federal, State and Local levels.”
He stated that a team of officers from the service shall visit selected taxpayers and taxable persons (including companies, NGOs or MDAs) to review their VAT and WHT records.
Adedeji noted that the exercise would cover 2019 to 2022 accounting years for taxable persons whose records have been audited by the Service up to 2018 accounting year.
He added that taxpayers whose records have been audited by the service up to the 2018 accounting year will be covered by the exercise, while those whose records have not been audited up to 2018 will have their prior years that have not been tax audited included in the exercise.
“All taxable persons or tax agents who have made deductions of VAT or WHT on behalf of the Service are required to immediately remit all such deductions to the FIRS within two weeks of this publication.”
The FIRS Chairman added that taxable persons or tax agents who shall be visited for the VAT and WHT compliance monitoring exercise will be notified by the FIRS and the documents required for the exercise will be listed in the letter to selected entities.
