First Thoughts: The Underdog Story
The idea of politics fascinates me to no end. While I wouldn’t necessarily call myself partisan, I am honest enough to say I do a lot of watching on the side lines. I am not a registered member of any political party in Nigeria, but I have always tried to be a good citizen and cast my votes a couple of times since the first time I voted in 2007. I had missed the 2003 elections by whiskers as I was yet to hit the voter eligibility age of 18 at the time. Elections, both in Nigeria and outside Nigeria have continued to thrill me even till date. For instance, I can hardly wait for the U.S.A Presidential Elections in November.
Sometimes, I feel like part of a huge audience watching a wrestling match and perhaps sitting in the front row where I get to see the live action. I love the adrenaline rush within me while watching with anticipation as political opponents battle for power. In this journey, I have since come to realise I like the underdog story. I have found myself always unconsciously supporting the candidate who looks like the one without more support. Most times however, I have found out that the underdog always ends up losing, especially in the Nigerian political space. You can almost predict the winner before the elections and it usually is the political party with more resources.
The recent Edo State elections was a classic case of an underdog story for me. Emphasis on ‘for me’. As far as I was concerned, with the recent events, the incumbent Governor seeking re-election had more or less become an underdog in his own state, and everything seemed to point to his impending defeat. Alas, the citizens of the state decided to show that in the final analysis, power actually belongs to the people and not the political parties. In another vein, elections in Nigeria have always shown the people as underdogs and the political parties as the top dogs who get to decide what happens in the Nigerian political space but time and time again, we get to find out that the underdogs can win too!
In this Issue:
- We trust you must be aware of the case between Ess-Ay Holdings Limited and Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS). Tax Appeal Tribunal (TAT) rules that real estate lease is not subject to Value Added Tax (VAT) under the VAT Act 1993 (as amended). Taxaide® is proud to have advised Ess-Ay Holdings Limited on the issues in the Appeal. Read more on the case in today’s newsletter.
- It’s less than 10 days to the deadline for submitting the 2019 Common Reporting Standard (CRS) Information Returns by Reporting Financial Institutions. The deadline is 30th September 2020. Why not enjoy a seamless CRS compliance process with our innovative solution developed by our technology flagship; Taxaide Technologies Limited which automates the entire CRS compliance process. Read more about the CRS Compliance process and how to stay ahead of the deadline HERE.
- Fikayo Adedeji, our Graduate Intern at Taxaide writes an interesting piece on the Yaba Local Development Council, a suburb of Lagos State, Nigeria. We beam our searchlight on this emerging municipal which has sometimes been touted as Nigeria’s Silicon Valley.
- The Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN), has called for a well-structured incentive design, implementation and monitoring mechanism of the National Tax Policy (NTP). Read more here.
- The cost of loans are set to reduce as CBN MPC cuts benchmark interest rate to 11.5%. Read more here.
Please stay tuned to our TaxThursday bulletins, our website and of course our mobile application, TBook.
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Till Next Time
GB (g.sile@localhost)
