Lagos Tackles Huawei Over Discrepancies In Personal Income Tax

Speaking at a press conference in Lagos, Chairman, Lagos Internal Revenue Service (LIRS), Mr. Tunde Fowler said it is currently investigating the company over differences in personal income tax that is due to LIRS for the 2013 fiscal year.

According to him, LIRS believes that the Huawei is indebted to it to the tune of N988 million instead of the N212 million which the company has paid as personal income tax into the coffers of the Lagos State Government.

He explained that Huawei objected to the N988 million which LIRS believes the company owes but that LIRS is currently looking into the books of the company to ascertain the basis of their objection, but that the figure may come down after investigation and necessary clarifications.

“We have also told them to give certain information including their monthly immigration reports which every company who has expatriates must provide.

“We are still in discussion with the company on 2013 remittances; if in the next one or two months it is not resolved, then those cases will go to court,” he said.

On how LIRS arrived at N988 million, he said it was based on industry average.

“You may ask us how we get to N988 million, we have what we call industry average rate. Base on the expatriates that they said they have here. They have 901 expatriate and we looked at the industry that they are in and we take an average pay of what those staff earn in other companies,” he said.

He said LIRS is currently doing tax audit on many multinational and local companies to establish their tax liability, with a view to taking appropriate action against them, adding that tax audit carried out by LIRS showed that some companies are defaulting and not fully remitting personal income tax of employees to the government.

He explained that the organized private sector in the fold of Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Nigeria Employers Consultative Association (NECA) record over 95 percent tax compliant but that there are challenges with the informal sub-sector which he said has about 40 percent rate of remittance.

He said that N20 billion comes into the coffers of the Lagos State Government monthly. He called on residents of the state to pay tax adding that without tax there will be no development most especially with dwindling federal allocation to states.