First City Monument Bank (FCMB) has urged business owners in Nigeria to keep pace with current and emerging realities in the corporate environment, especially on taxation, in order to make their respective businesses competitive and enhance overall performance. The bank would want stakeholders to build a more robust relationship that would enable Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) to effectively understand the country’s tax laws and how it applies to them.

It made the submission at a virtual tax seminar organised in partnership with the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) recently. The seminar, the third in the series, was under the theme, “Tax and Your Business: An In-depth Discussion” had over 500 registered SME participants in attendance. The event provided a platform to equip entrepreneurs with requisite knowledge on taxation by promoting the exchange of ideas between tax regulators and businesses on existing and emerging tax matters to ensure compliance and avoid sanctions.

Topics discussed at the seminar ranged from, Accessing your Tax Identification Number, Understanding Nigeria’s Business Tax System, Tax Reconciliation Issues: An SME Perspective, Tax Compliance and Business Performance, among others.

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Among the experts who spoke at the virtual seminar were the Director, Taxpayer Service Department at the FIRS, Mrs. Saadatu Yero; Acting Director, Special Taxes Department of the Service, Mr. Adamu Kudu; Divisional Head, Transaction Banking, FCMB,

In her keynote address, Mrs. Yero, enlightened participants on the importance of obtaining Tax Identification Number (TIN) by SMEs.

According to her, “the TIN helps businesses to make easy payment over different platforms such as remita, e-transact and Paydirect. It is also an important requirement when businesses request for credit note for tax reconciliation, offsetting of tax debt and claim processing.”