The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has hired some commercial banks as agents to freeze and recover N1.8 trillion from accounts of MultiChoice Nigeria Limited (MCN) and MultiChoice Africa (MCA), a statement by the Service said on Thursday.
FIRS spokesman Abdullahi Ahmad explained that the decision to appoint the banks as agents and to freeze the accounts was as a result of the groups’ continued refusal to grant FIRS access to their servers for audit.
The FIRS said it discovered that the companies persistently breached all agreements and undertakings with the Service.
Executive chairman of FIRS Muhammad Nami was quoted as saying, “The companies would not promptly respond to correspondences, they lacked data integrity and are not transparent as they continually deny FIRS access to their records.
“Particularly, MCN has avoided giving the FIRS accurate information on the number of its subscribers and income.
“The companies are involved in the under-remittance of taxes which necessitated a critical review of the tax-compliance level of the company.”
The Service added that the groups’ performance did not reflect in their tax obligations and compliance level in the country.
The FIRS further noted that the level of non-compliance by Multi-Choice Africa (MCA), the parent company of MCN was very alarming adding that the parent company, which provided services to MCN had never paid value-added tax (VAT) since its inception.
The chairman stated that Nigeria contributed 34 per cent of total revenue for the MultiChoice group, saying that the next to Nigeria from intelligence gathering is Kenya with 11 per cent and Zambia in third place with 10 per cent.
According to him, the other African countries where they have presence account for 45 per cent of the group’s total revenue.
“Information currently at the disposal of FIRS has revealed a tax liability for relevant years of assessment for ₦1.8trillion and 342.5 million dollars.
“FIRS is powered in Section 49 of the Companies Income Tax Act Cap C21 LFN 2004 as amended, Section 41 of the Value Added Tax Act Cap V1 LFN 2004 as amended and Section 31 of the FIRS (Establishment) Act No. 13 of 2007.
“We these relevant sections all bankers to MCA and MCN in Nigeria are therefore appointed as Collecting Agents for the full recovery of the aforesaid tax debt.
“In this regard, the affected banks are required to sweep balances in each of the above-mentioned entities’ accounts and pay the same in full or part settlement of the companies’ respective tax debts until full recovery.
“This should be done before the execution of any transaction involving the companies or any of their subsidiaries. It is further requested that the FIRS be informed of any transactions before execution on the account, especially transfers of funds to any of their subsidiaries.
”It is important that Nigeria puts a stop to all tax frauds that had been going on for too long and all companies must be held accountable and made to pay their fair share of relevant taxes including back duty taxes owed especially VAT,” he said.
