The House of Representatives Committee on Public Account (PAC) has assured the Federal Capital Territory, Inland Revenue Services, (FCT- IRS) of its support toward revenue generation.
The Chairman of the committee, Rep. Oluwole Oke (PDP-Osun) gave the assurance on Tuesday at a public hearing in Abuja.
The lawmaker promised that the ninth National Assembly would support all revenue generating agencies to enhance their operations.
Oke urged the general public and all tax payers to report any violation of the law concerning issuance of Tax Clearance Certificate (TCC) by the management of FCT-IRS.
Oke advised that the FCT-IRS should consider legislative arm as collaborator that would work to ensuring smooth operation of the service.
“We will support you in whatever way to generate more revenue in the FCT, try to have record of the entire people resident in Abuja.
`The data is important; ask for bank statements to know the actual tax to collect.
“We will support FCT-IRS and help the service to bring more people to the tax net,” he said.
Earlier, the acting Chairman of the FCT-IRS, Mr Haruna Abdullahi disclosed that it had introduced Electronic Tax Clearance Certificate (E-TCC).
He said the aim was to improve service delivery and checkmate activities of fraudsters who could forge such document.
Abdullahi explained that the E-TCC had fortified the process thereby making it difficult for anyone to forge such document because of the introduction of QR CODE.
He said this effort would help the service not to be short-changed as well as boost revenue for the FCT.
He further explained that TCC was a document being issued by the Tax Authority to certify that an individual or a business was compliant with the appropriate requirements as stated by law within a stipulated period of time.
He added that this was usually for the three preceding years.
Abdullahi said that this was in line with section 85 of the Personal Income Tax Act (PITA) 2011 as amended.
It states that, “whenever the relevant tax authority is of opinion that tax assessed on the income of a person for the three years immediately preceding the current year of assessment has been fully paid or that no tax is due on income or that the person is not liable to tax for any of those three years, it shall issue a tax clearance certificate to the person within two weeks of demand for the certificate by that person or give reasons for the denial.”
According to him, while issuing a tax clearance certificate, due diligence must be carried out to ensure certain conditions are met by the taxpayers and satisfied by tax authority.
He stated that application for TCC must be made and duly endorsed by the taxpayer and annual income declaration ‘form A’ and three years income declaration form must also be duly completed and signed by the taxpayer.
The FCT-IRS boss also explained that personal emoluments which comprised of wages, salaries, allowances, benefits in kind, gratuities, superannuation or pension schemes and any other income derived solely by reason of employment were declared.
Abdullahi added that income declared must be verified, certified and evidences of such income be sited while benefit in kind must also be verified based on section 4 of PITA 2011.
The chairman advised that taxpayers should always endeavour to declare their incomes accordingly with evidences that would be satisfactory to the mangers of the tax authority while due diligence would be carried out appropriately within the stipulated time.
“It is evident that the issuance of the TCC is at the discretion of the Service in its justification based on the items listed in section 31 of FCT-IRS Act, 2015 and PITA, 2011 (as amended) may issue or not issue a tax clearance certificate,” he concluded. (NAN)
