The entertainment giant, Multichoice, the owner of DStv and GOtv, has lost an appeal against the Nigerian government which is insisting that it pays $342 million tax backlog. The company had appealed against Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) which concluded that Multichoice has an unpaid VAT principal of $123.7 million. With a penalty of $218 million tagged along, the sum came down to $342 million. The company appealed but has now lost that phase.
Crazy things do happen and on this one, I am 100% with Nigeria. While I am not a lawyer to know what they do in court, from my common knowledge, MultiChoice can open its books, providing what was paid, and based on that, it can provide a good figure on its VAT obligations. There is no need to do guesswork; it has the books to stop this waste of money on lawyers!
But as always, there will be a settlement and the case will magically close. But it must not be this way. VAT does not EVER belong to any company. So, it ought never to be fought in the court.
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As MultiChoice plots its next move, the government is saying that companies in Nigeria owe it $17 billion on taxes: “local and foreign corporations are owing the Nigerian government over N7 trillion [about $17 billion] in taxes, limiting the government’s revenue and helping to fuel massive borrowing, the head of the country’s financial intelligence unit has said. The Director of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), Modibbo Tukur, said the companies are partly responsible for the rise in the debt profile of the country.” That seems very scary for a country which is borrowing left and right.
In Ovim (Abia State), we have women called Ojengwa (“move fast”). These women are the ones who resolve difficult matters – and they are very effective. Maybe Nigeria should engage them because one technique they use is this: if you cannot behave, you cannot remain in Ovim! So, if companies cannot pay tax, they must cease to operate in Nigeria.
Why must Nigeria be a victim all the time? Revoke operating licenses for tax-cheats.
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Some dollars on the way…
The puzzling question remains, how is it possible to treat any serious and responsible person the way Nigeria is treated? It means that there are accomplices. Making it sound like the companies are just stubborn and recalcitrant will be missing the point, things don’t just happen, someone or some persons are benefiting.
We are specialists when it comes to hiring unpatriotic and criminally minded people to manage things meant for patriots. Now the government will create a new narrative, tagging those companies as bad, without ever carrying out a comprehensive investigation on why these things keep happening, and so – no one is going to jail, we are too ordinary to be taken seriously.
Funny creatures everywhere.