FIRS extends South-South tax recovery drive to Calabar

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has extended its South-South tax recovery drive to Calabar, the Cross River State capital, as the enforcement team from the federal revenue agency embarked on aggressive tax recovery of five defaulting firms in the state.

Dikko Dauda Betrus, tax controller, Micro and Small tax payers in Calabar, told BusinessDay in an interview that his team aimed to recover huge unpaid arrears of company taxes running into millions of naira.

Betrus discloses that the amount owed the FIRS since 1998, to the last Q1 of 2014, runs into tens of millions naira.

After the raid by the enforcement team, 10 persons from the affected companies were arrested for alleged non-filling of returns and defaulting tax remittance.

The FIRS controller says the tax recovery drive became necessary in the face of dwindling oil prices, which is now a serious issue, affecting the country’s economy in the execution of capital projects.

He says the clampdown on the defaulting firms became very imperative after serving the affected firms series of reminders over their non-compliance of their withholding tax payment and Value Added Tax (VAT) within the period.

Dikko says his department handles turnover of companies from N1 to N199 million to register and grow companies, and at the same time, the department is committed to excellent tax administration service to stakeholders, as well as ensure effective, convenient and efficient improvement of firms within the Calabar metropolis and environs.

Among the companies raided include Franphinas Nigeria Limited of 173 Murtala Mohammed Highway, owing N1.142 million; Hotschop Limited, N3 million; Orange Resort, N701,000; The Mirage Calabar N208 million, and Freddy’s Investment Nigeria Limited by Atekong Drive N3.03 million.

Meanwhile, the legal adviser to the Mirage Calabar, William Anwan pleads with the tax controller on behalf of the minister of culture and tourism, Edem Duke, who is the owner of the hotel facility, asking for more time to enable his client settles his liabilities before the end of the year.

According to him, “Mirage is not denying owing FIRS. We are going to make substantial payments. The minister told me to come and make an appeal.”

Asekong Egbe, the manager of Franphina Nigeria Limited, also owned by a governorship aspirant in Cross River, Francis Bulem appeals to FIRS to offset their liabilities through installments before the first quarters of next year.

In his reaction to the appeals, the tax controller, Dikko Dauda says the requests was beyond his capacity, as he can only grant three installmental payments of the amount owed to FIRS.

He says the directive by the enforcement team was by the coordinating minister of the economy and minister of finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, to work round the state capital to trace some of the defaulting firms with a view to recovering their liabilities ahead of the 2015 budget.