The Tax Appeal Tribunal (TAT) sitting in Lagos on Tuesday, 24th August , 2021 ordered Multichoice Nigeria Limited, owners of popular cable television services, DSTV, to pay 50 per cent of N1.8 trillion which the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has determined through a forensic audit to be the amount in taxes that Multichoice Nigeria Limited had failed to pay to the Government of Nigeria in past assessment years.<\/p>\n
The five-member TAT led by its Chairman, Professor A.B. Ahmed, issued the order following an application to it by the Counsel to FIRS.<\/span><\/p>\n The FIRS Counsel made the application under Order XI of the TAT Procedure Rules 2010 which enables a party to make an application at any stage of the\u00a0 proceedings. <\/span><\/p>\n Counsel\u00a0for\u00a0FIRS\u00a0 drew the attention of the Tribunal to\u00a0Paragraph 15(7) of the Fifth Schedule to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (Establishment) Act 2007\u00a0 and urge the Tribunal to direct Multichoice\u00a0 Nigeria Limited\u00a0 to deposit with the FIRS 50 percent of the amount of the Assessment under Appeal\u00a0 as security and a condition that must be fulfilled before the prosecution of the Appeal brought before TAT.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0In certain defined circumstances to which the Multichoice appeal fits, Paragraph 15(7) of the Fifth Schedule to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (Establishment) Act 2007 (FIRS Act) requires persons or companies seeking to contest a tax assessment to pay all or a stipulated percentage of the tax assessed before they can be allowed to argue their appeal contesting the assessment at TAT.<\/span><\/p>\n Multichoice Nigeria Limited filed the matter at the Lagos TAT following its dispute over FIRS\u2019 issuance of Notices of Assessment and Demand Note in the sum of N1, 822, 923,909,313.94k on 7 April 2021. <\/span><\/p>\n The amount constitutes what the FIRS calculated as due in taxation to the Federal Government of Nigeria from Multichoice after an investigation over several months to determine the extent to which Multichoice has been evading taxes in Nigeria.<\/span><\/p>\n At Tuesday\u2019s hearing of the matter in Appeal No: TAT\/LZ\/CIT\/062\/2021 19\/08\/2021 (Multichoice Nigeria Limited v. Federal Inland Revenue Service), Multichoice Nigeria Limited amended its Notice of Appeal and thereafter sought through its counsel,\u00a0 Bidemi Olumide of AO2 Law Firm for an adjournment of the proceedings to enable it to respond to the FIRS\u2019 formal application for Accelerated hearing of the Appeal and prayer before the TAT directing\u00a0 Multichoice to produce before the Tribunal the integrated Annual report and Management Account Statements\u00a0 of Multichoice\u00a0 Group Ltd for Tax Years 2012 to 2020., among other prayers.<\/span><\/p>\n In response, however,\u00a0 the FIRS Counsel asked TAT to issue an order requiring that Multichoice makes the statutory deposit of 50% of the disputed sum.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0After hearing arguments from both sides, TAT upheld the FIRS submission\u00a0 and directed Multichoice Nigeria Limited to deposit with the FIRS\u00a0 an amount equals 50 percent of the Assessment under the Appeal\u00a0 plus a sum equal to 10% of the said deposit as a condition precedent for further Hearing of the Appeal.<\/span><\/p>\n Thereafter, TAT adjourned the Appeal to 23 September 2021 for\u00a0 report of compliance\u00a0 with its Order and continuation of the hearing, subject to compliance with the Tribunal\u2019s order.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Tax Appeal Tribunal (TAT) sitting in Lagos on Tuesday, 24th August , 2021 ordered Multichoice Nigeria Limited, owners of popular cable television services, DSTV, to pay 50 per cent of N1.8 trillion which the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has determined through a forensic audit to be the amount in taxes that Multichoice Nigeria […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2456],"tags":[892,185,3243,3242,3241],"class_list":["post-5162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-dstv","tag-firs","tag-multichoice-nigeria-limited","tag-tax-backlog","tag-tribunal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5162"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5162"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5164,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5162\/revisions\/5164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblogonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}