Senate Wants MTN Tax Concession Reversed
From Kola Ologbondiyan in Abuja
The Senate Committee on Public Accounts yesterday told the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) Chairman, Miss Ifueko Omoigu, to look into the five-year tax concession granted the MTN telecom service provider with a view to reversing the tax holiday, citing the huge profits declared by the company yearly.
The Senate Committee chairman, Senator Mamman Ali, who handed down the directive during an interactive session between members of the committee, representatives of the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation as well as their Accountant-General counterparts on one hand and the management of the FIRS on the other, said the decision to grant the telecom company a five-year tax holiday was not done in consultation with Nigerians.
"If they say they have waived MTN taxes for five years, how? What is the legal basis for that. Even if they have waived the taxes, Nigerians were not informed, the National Assembly was not informed. We don't also think it (tax waiver) is a law. Even if it's a policy of the Federal Government, we need to know. So, FIRS should look into it and find a way of reversing it.
"We need to know whether companies that declare billions of naira as profit also match such declarations with remittance of taxes because we have discovered a lot of leakages in the revenue accruing to the Federal Government.
"It is therefore imperative that you avail our committee with the list of quoted and unquoted companies taxes and value added taxes remittances. We also want to inquire the issue of Pay As You Earn (PAYE) because we have discovered that some organisations, though not charity organisations, are finding it difficult to pinpoint their payrolls talkless of their PAYE remittances.
"Your predecessor has given us the revenue profile of quoted companies. We want you to focus your mind properly because when the Public Accounts Committee has submitted its first report we would dwell more on revenue in the second report," Ali told the FIRS management.
He, however, asked the FIRS to furnish the committee with samples of defaulting quoted and unquoted companies within the next 30 days.
"We have to set examples because in the National Assembly, we have paid our taxes fully. In the next meeting, come up with one of the critical employers that have defaulted. We have our facts. We want you to come up with quoted and unquoted companies that have defaulted and they have to pay. If we have the statistics, we can argue the case for your funding," Ali said
Responding, Omoigu admitted the existence of leakages in the Federal Government revenue but noted that several agencies of government are defaulters to the tune of more than N14 billion, adding that even the states and local governments are not left out.
Noting that FIRS has the powers to compel people and organisation, to pay their taxes, she explained that in the area of PAYE, the service has jurisdiction only over the Federal Capital Territory while the states are in charge of their respective domains.
"We agree to several leakages and there are significant chances of collecting federal government revenues which are not just on VAT but also PAYE," he said, adding that "part of our plans take cognisance of that fact."
"For us to discharge our responsibilities, we need money to collect money. We need to fund FIRS, Customs etc. because it is extremely difficult to plug the leakages you (Ali) talked about. We need funding to go into even the area of unquoted companies that you also mentioned because a significant number of enterprises need counselling and education on how to keep records and register with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).
"FIRS should pay the PAYE and we shall be the starting point. Also, the staff of ministries and parastatals are not paying PAYE and once we start from ourselves, we would ensure that other ministries pay," she said.
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