Approaching the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) Deadline: Important Information Your Financial Institution Should Know + Do

  1.  Nigeria’s Income Tax (Common Reporting Standard) Regulations 2019 (the Regulations) became effective on July 1, 2019. Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) is the administering agency.
  2. The Regulations places an obligation on all financial institutions in Nigeria to provide a report to the FIRS on all accounts (Reportable Accounts) maintained by their customers (Reportable Persons) that are not tax-resident in Nigeria or the United States of America (USA).
  3. Your financial institution does not need to provide a report to the FIRS on the accounts (non-Reportable Accounts) maintained by your Nigeria or USA-resident customers (non-Reportable Persons).
  4. Accordingly, and for the purpose of the Regulations, Nigeria and USA are non-Reportable Jurisdictions. All other countries are Reportable Jurisdictions.
  5. A person who has dual tax residency in a Reportable Jurisdiction and a non-Reportable Jurisdiction, is a Reportable Person and accordingly his/her account in your financial institution is a Reportable Account. For example, the accounts of a customer who is tax-resident in both Nigeria and Canada, is a Reportable Account.
  6. Your financial institution has an obligation to know the tax residence of all persons who maintain an account with it. Accordingly, you need to put in place a due diligence process that elicits this information from all your customers.
  7. Your financial institution must maintain a register, schedule or enterprise resource planning tool (ERP) (altogether, Report Register) that identifies all your Reportable Persons and Reportable Accounts.
  8. Your Report Register must contain information such as the following on all Reportable Persons and Reportable Accounts: Name, Address, Reportable Jurisdiction, Date and Place of Birth, Reportable Account Number, Tax Identification Number, Income (including interest, dividends and other income) earned by Reportable Person, and Reportable Account Balance as at end of the relevant period.
  9. Your financial institution must prepare and submit an annual Reportable Accounts Information (Information Returns) not later than Wednesday,  September 30, 2020 to the FIRS. Accordingly, Information Returns on all Reportable Persons and Reportable Accounts maintained in your financial institution in 2019 is due to be submitted to FIRS not later than Wednesday, September 30, 2020.

    Please note: The Reportable Accounts Information (Information Returns) should be submitted not later than May 31st of every year to the FIRS. Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic the deadline was extended. Please read more HERE.
  10. Your financial institution is still required to submit Information Returns even though you have no Reportable Accounts; in which case, a nil Information Returns will be filed with FIRS.
  11. FIRS may share your financial institution’s Information Returns with Nigeria’s counterpart countries further to Nigeria’s obligation under the Multilateral Agreement on the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information.
  12. Similar to your accounting records, your Information Returns are required to be kept for minimum of 6 years thereafter.
  13. FIRS may, by a notice in writing, additionally require your financial institution to furnish it, within a minimum of 14days, with any document or information on compliance with the Regulations.
  14. Failure to comply with any of these obligations will expose your financial institution to a maximum flat fine of ₦10million plus ₦1million for every month of breach. For emphasis, your obligations include: keeping your Report Register; filing your Information Returns correctly and accurately; and being ready at any time to supply FIRS with any document or information lawfully requested from your financial institution.
  15. You can employ the services of a service provider like Taxaide to assist with your due diligence and reporting obligation under the Regulations. Taxaide can also assist with the automation of your CRS compliance process including deploying a CRS-focused ERP.

For further enquiries on the subject, please contact Taxaide’s International Tax Desk at: itd@localhost or business@localhost;  +234 700 TAXAIDE; +234 1 631 0971-2; +234 810 701 7274.

A Series on Tax Reliefs – Part 3

Welcome to the third part of this series.

We have been reviewing the tax reliefs made available by the Federal and State Governments to taxpayers to cushion the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

So far, we have reviewed the tax reliefs made available in the following states: Lagos, Bayelsa, Kebbi, Gombe, Jigawa, Bauchi, Akwa Ibom and Yobe State. You can read them HERE.

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THE TAXAIDER NEWSLETTER VOL 2, ISSUE 7 (JULY 2020)

First Thoughts:
Use and Disuse

Jean Baptiste Lamarck’s law of use and disuse remains a vital point of discourse for me. In summary, the law emphasizes that certain traits or characteristics develop based on their use or disuse and can be transferred hereditarily to progenies. I would prefer not to dwell on the somewhat controversial nature of the law, its criticisms or comparison to Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution among other lines of thought. Rather, I would relate the salient points of this law to our reality today.

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A Series of Tax Relief Part 2

Welcome to the second part of this series.

Last week, we looked at some of the tax reliefs that have made available by the federal government to taxpayers to cushion the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, various state governments have also made some tax reliefs available to taxpayers. Some of these tax reliefs available in various states include:

The Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) has made the following tax reliefs and palliatives for taxpayers in the State:

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A Series on Tax Reliefs Part 1

A few months back, I heard the story of a young man who was in a rather unfortunate situation. I could only sympathize with his predicament. Before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted economic and business activities in the country, this young man had a stable job but had undergone an interview with a prospective new employer in the hope of securing a better job. Based on his performance at the interview, he had been given assurances that he would get the job. However, he was yet to receive an employment letter. This young man went ahead to quit his job at the time and was waiting for the call from his “new employers”. Fast-forward to a few months later; this young man was told that the new company could not offer him the job as the COVID-19 pandemic had seriously affected their operations and ability to recruit new personnel.

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Stamp Duties to the Rescue

Kola, an entrepreneur in Lagos State woke up to see multiple bank alerts on his phone much to his greatest surprise. No, those were not credit alerts but debit alerts, the worst alerts you can receive especially for transactions you did not initiate. As we progress in this article you would understand what those debits alerts were and no, he was not scammed either.

I am sure you realize that we are in unprecedented times. More than ever before the Federal Government of Nigeria is intensifying efforts to ensure that all non-oil revenue sources are revived.

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VAT Public Notice on Non-Exempt Items

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) issued a Public Notice on Wednesday, June 24, 2020. The Public Notice seeks to provide clarification to Paragraph 2 of the Value Added Tax (VAT Modification) Order 2020 (Modification Order) made by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning (Minister) on February 3, 2020. We provide below, our synopsis and remarks on the Public Notice here. You can also find the Modification Order here.

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THE TAXAIDER NEWSLETTER VOL 2, ISSUE 6 (June 2020)

First Thoughts: The Glass Half Full

In recent times I have seen and heard reactions from a lot of people I know concerning how the year has turned out in a way most didn’t quite envisage. Some have even wished they had magic wands they could wave and make the entire year disappear or perhaps, restart. I would confess that I was one of these people for a while. Many of us had very high hopes for 2020 just like we always do at the beginning of every New Year. 2020 was quite significant however; perhaps because of the way it sounds when you pronounce it. At least, 2020 sounds a whole lot better than 2019 (or any other year before now) on the lips, don’t you think?

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