By Bimbola Oyesola
With barely two days to the deadline of remittance of August’s Value Added Tax (VAT), members of the Organised Private Sector of Nigeria (OPSN) are presently in dilemma as where to make the payment to as the battle on collection rages between the Federal Government, Rivers and Lagos states.
Its President, Taiwo Adeniyi, at a media briefing in Lagos on Friday said that, as an umbrella body representing the interests of organised businesses in Nigeria, the consortium are seriously concerned at the consequences of the ongoing controversy.
He recalled that the Federal Government, through the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) – by the Value Added Tax (VAT) Act 1993 has been the collecting authority for VAT throughout the country.
But this, he noted, was prior to the case of Attorney-General of Rivers State vs. Federal Inland Revenue Service & Attorney-General of the Federation, where the Federal High Court of Nigeria, Port Harcourt Division, favoured the position of Rivers State government and paved the way for the state to collect VAT.
“Rivers State has since enacted a Value Added Tax Law, which mandates all VAT paying entities within Rivers State to deduct, collect and remit VAT within the state to the Rivers State government through the Rivers State Inland Revenue Service.
“In a similar trend, Lagos State government also enacted a VAT Law for the state, and there are indications that other states also enact VAT laws in their respective states,” he stated.
The OPSN Chairman, who is also the President of NECA, lamented that it is also public knowledge that the Appeal Court sitting in Abuja has made further pronouncements to the effect that the status quo be maintained. And Rivers State has appealed against this at the Supreme Court.
He said: “In all of these, there is heightened uncertainty as to where all of these will end. While organised businesses have remained law-abiding, fulfilling their tax obligations to both the federal and state government, it would be an aberration to punish businesses or make them suffer from the proverbial “two elephants fighting.
“It is, in our opinion, that the conundrum be addressed timely as delay can fester negative effect on businesses, especially in collection and remittance of VAT to relevant authority.”