Delta State Government to Enforce Tax Laws on High Net Worth Individuals

Individuals and companies are more often than not, unwilling to declare tax obligations. Where any such declarations are made, they are often not found to be accurate thereby reducing the revenue available to the State.

It is on this premise that the Honourable Commissioner for Finance, David Edevbie announced that the Delta State Government through the Board of Internal Revenue (BIR) will fully commence the taxation of High Net Worth Individuals in the state from 2017.

In his words, “The Delta State Government is fully aware that a majority of individuals are not paying their fair share of taxes particularly those deemed as High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI). A major challenge and constraint in this regard, is the non-compliance of banks and other financial institutions in supplying the information required to the Board of Internal Revenue (BIR) to help assess such individuals in line with the provisions of the Tax laws.

From 2017, this will no longer be tolerated and erring institutions will be severely sanctioned. In addition, there will now be unbiased application and enforcement of relevant tax laws across board. Known HNWI will be contacted directly in the next few weeks by the Board of Internal Revenue to discuss their tax liabilities based on information already at our disposal.

We urge them to cooperate and pay their taxes as the BIR will be collaborating with the Judiciary and Security agencies with a view to improving tax compliance and enforcement. Revenue courts in the state are being expanded and repositioned to make them more responsive to the challenges of revenue generation.”

The Finance Commissioner added that “To expand the database of tax payers in Delta State, the Board of Internal Revenue is focusing on capturing more than 70% of taxable persons in the informal sector in the tax net. It has also increased its corporate tax agent database from 1,800 to over 5,800.

Furthermore, BIR in collaboration with UK-DFID/GEMS-3 is working on a harmonized demand notice for all taxes, levies and charges payable to the Delta State Government to eliminate instances of double taxation. The harmonized demand notice which should come into effect in early 2017 would be issued once a year and it would detail all taxes, levies and charges payable to Delta State Government for that year and the applicable bank account details.”

David Edevbie noted that the long-term thrust of the Finance Ministry for 2017 and beyond is to increase IGR through the use of technology to drive revenue generation and manage the State’s resources. “With effective monitoring and enforcement, it is projected that the IGR portfolio will expand considerably, thereby improving the financial strength and credit worthiness of the State.”

Delta State Government realized the total sum of N56, 646,821,063.75 as internally generated revenue (IGR) between June 2015 and September, 2016.

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