General News of Saturday, 19 September 2020
Source: pulse.ng
The federal government has tendered an apology and deleted a series of tweets that sent Nigeria's social media space into a meltdown on Thursday, September 17, 2020.
“We apologize for the misleading tweets (now deleted) that went up yesterday, regarding the completion of self-certification forms by Reportable Persons. The message contained in the @firsNigeria notice does not apply to everybody. FIRS will issue appropriate clarification shortly,” the federal government shared.
The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has also added that an earlier statement from the federal government requesting all bank and insurance account holders to obtain self-certification forms from their financial institutions, has been misunderstood.
On Thursday, the federal government issued a statement to say “all account holders in financial institutions (Banks, Insurance Companies, etc) are required to obtain, complete and submit self-certification forms to their respective financial institutions.
“Failure to comply with the requirement to administer or execute this form attracts sanctions which may include monetary penalty or inability to operate the account.”
Nigerians have been railing against the move, wondering why a previous Bank Verification Number (BVN) exercise touted as a solution to all biometric data harmonization in the country, can’t deal with the problem.
The FIRS has now come out to say the policy only affects non-residents and citizens with tax residence in more than one country.
“This is to clarify the publication for financial institutions account holders in Nigeria to complete the self certification form, pursuant to the Income Tax (Common Reporting Standard) Regulations 2019 which is for the fulfillment of Automatic Exchange of Information Requirements,” the FIRS shared in a tweet.
“The self certification form is basically to be administered on Reportable persons holding accounts in Financial institutions that are regarded as "Reportable Financial Institutions” under the CRS. Reportable persons are often non-residents and other persons who have residence for tax purposes in more than one jurisdiction or country.
We apologize for the misleading tweets (now deleted) that went up yesterday, regarding the completion of self-certification forms by Reportable Persons. The message contained in the @firsNigeria Notice does not apply to everybody. FIRS will issue appropriate clarification shortly pic.twitter.com/KBiPh0lCwJ
— Government of Nigeria (@NigeriaGov) September 18, 2020