The Tax Appeal Tribunal sitting in Lagos has instructed Multichoice Nigeria Limited to pay the sum of ₦900 billion as a deposit to Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
This development was made known to newsmen on Wednesday through FIRS spokesman, Dr. Abdullahi Ahmad, who explained that the money was part of 50 percent of the ₦1.8 trillion which the revenue had determined through a forensic audit to be the amount in taxes that the company ought to have paid to the government.
Africa Daily News, New York understands that Multichoice – owners of DSTV – failed to pay its rightful tax to the Nigerian Government in past assessment years.
According to the spokesperson, a five-member Tax Appeal Tribunal (TAT) led by its Chairman, Professor A.B. Ahmed, issued the order following an application to it by the counsel to FIRS.
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‘The FIRS counsel made the application under Order XI of the TAT Procedure Rules 2010 which enables a party to make an application at any stage of the proceedings,” Ahmad said.
‘Counsel to FIRS drew the attention of the Tribunal to Paragraph 15(7) of the Fifth Schedule to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (Establishment) Act 2007 and urge the Tribunal to direct Multichoice Nigeria Limited to deposit with the FIRS 50 per cent of the amount of the Assessment under Appeal as security and a condition that must be fulfilled before the prosecution of the Appeal brought before TAT.
‘In certain defined circumstances to which the Multichoice appeal fits, Paragraph 15(7) of the Fifth Schedule to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (Establishment) Act 2007 (FIRS Act) requires persons or companies seeking to contest a tax assessment to pay all or a stipulated percentage of the tax assessed before they can be allowed to argue their appeal contesting the assessment at TAT.”
Multichoice, according to the FIRS spokesman, filed the case at the Lagos TAT following its dispute over the agency’s issuance of Notices of Assessment and Demand Note in the sum of ₦1,822,923,909,313.94 on April 7.
He said the amount was what the FIRS calculated as due in taxation to the government of Multichoice after an investigation over several months to determine the extent to which the company has been evading taxes in Nigeria.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
