Emmanuel Thomas, Lagos
November 04, 2015 – The Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) today shut six companies for failing to remit N18.73 million personal income taxes of workers to the state government.
Employees are required to remit Pay As You Earn(PAYE) to the state government but most companies, including media outfit do not honour this obligation.
Assistant Head of Distrain Unit of the LIRS, Mrs Oluwalomona Ekosanmi, who lead the enforcement team, said that the affected companies had tax liabilities of between 12 months and six years.
“Tax-payment is a civic responsibility of everyone because it is a major source of government’s revenue and also the only means government can provide the basic amenities for its citizens to improve their living standards,” she said.
Ekosanmi said LIRS usually sent two letters of notice to the defaulting companies before embarking on any clamp-down exercise.
He said the affected companies violated the Personal Income Tax Act (Amendment) of 2011.
“Each of the letters that we sent to the companies was received and acknowledged by any of companies’ staff or the management of the firms. So, for some of the companies to say that LIRS did not notify them before coming to seal their premises is not an excuse.
“Normally, firms are not even supposed to wait for anybody to remind them of their statutory obligation of remitting taxes to the government of the land where they operate,” she said.
