Nigeria Introduces 45-Day Tax Amnesty
Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has announced that a tax amnesty is now in operation for undeclared tax liabilities for the three years from 2013 to 2015.
To avoid the payment of tax penalties and interest for those years, taxpayers must declare their tax dues by November 24, 2016. By that deadline, taxpayers will have to forward an application to FIRS and make an immediate payment of at least 25 percent of the tax due, with the remainder being payable thereafter in installments.
In its Public Notice announcing the tax amnesty, FIRS emphasized that it will use “all legal means” at its disposal, including criminal prosecution, against those taxpayers who do not declare their unpaid taxes.
Last month, Nigeria’s review committee, which was established early this year to recommend ways to improve the current National Tax Policy, had recommended the introduction of a tax amnesty program to support FIRS’s target of widening the country’s taxpayer base and substantially increasing the country’s non-oil revenue.
