…NASS to resolve Stamp Duty feud between FIRS, NIPOST
THE Federal Inland Revenue Service says it has been generating N3bn revenue weekly from stamp duty collection.
The stamp duty revenue, according to the agency, has been generated weekly from May 2020 to date from Deposit Money Banks.
Executive Chairman of the FIRS, Muhammad Nami, revealed this to the House of Representatives Committee on Finance on Tuesday in Abuja.
The purpose of the meeting with the legislators was to resolve the face-off between the FIRS and the Nigeria Postal Service over stamp duty collection, and the fate of the N58 billion revenue generated from February 2016 to April, 2020.
The Session, which was chaired by the Chairman Finance Committee of the House of Representatives, James Faleke, had in attendance other members of the committee, the Post-Master General of the Federation, Ismail Adebanjo Adewusi, NIPOST Board Chairman, Maimuna Yaya Abubakar, other top officials of the postal agency and FIRS officials.
Nami said the FIRS was able to generate this much revenue from a single stream of stamp duty collection from DMBs because the Service had deployed a new technology to track and capture such revenue straight into the federation account.
He said the technology deployed by the FIRS was the Application Programming Interface technology solution, an online real time technology that makes collection of Stamp Duties easier.
Nami said when he assumed office in December 2019, the FIRS discovered over N30bn in the NIPOST Stamp duty Account with the Central Bank of Nigeria. The account was opened in 2016 specifically to warehouse revenue from stamp duty collection.
However, by April 2020, the balance in the account had grown to N58bn because of the deployment of the API by the FIRS. Money in the stamp duty account by May 2020 was transferred to the federation account, following instructions given to the CBN by the FIRS to do so.
Since then, both the FIRS and the NIPOST have been at loggerheads over who controls stamp duty collection and invariably the money which accrues from the collection.
Nami said payment of Stamp Duties collection in Nigeria dates back 94 years ago, stressing that stamp duty had always been part of the revenue schedule of tax authority.
While the Stamp Duty Act 2004 mandated NIPOST to manage the stamp duty, the recent Finance Bill reposed the responsibility in FIRS.
Nami regretted that the differences in who controls stamp duty collection between both NIPOST and FIRS had degenerated into a public face-off between the two agencies, describing the development as “unnecessary and unhelpful”.
“The FIRS regrets that as agencies of the government, FIRS and NIPOST allow a simple situation to degenerate to media exposure,” he said.
In his submission, the Postmaster General described the feud between FIRS and his agency as needless.
He said, “As prelude, it’s important to make this remark. NIPOST is not a tax collecting agency. We are not in the business of collecting taxes, that’s not our mandate. But our role in stamp duty is clearly stated in the law.
“The issue is, the Finance Act, 2019 did not in any way stop NIPOST from its mandate. In spite of amendment to finance Act, it has not affected the responsibility of NIPOST. There is no fight between NIPOST and FIRS over tax collection.”
He however insisted that the responsibility of procuring stamp rests with NIPOST but appealed that the agency was entitled to its share of the stamp duty proceeds it collected and domiciled in the CBN from 2016 to 2020.
He told the Finance committee that “all the monies that accrued to the account include proceeds of stamp sales. In the spirit of peace, we want FIRS to look at the issue. We deserve sharing cost of collection. At the initial meeting, FIRS said they would give us 30 per cent and take 70 per cent, we said no.”
Earlier in his opening remarks, the Chairman, House Committee on Finance said the committee was embarrassed by the open engagement of the two government agencies in addressing the issue.
According to him, “as a committee responsible for overseeing finance agencies, we decided to call for this dialogue to see if the agencies are doing the bidding of the law.”
He said having heard presentations by both sides, it would be counterproductive for the committee to just take a decision.
