The Nation
The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has launched a new assessment regime to determine the tax ranges companies before they file returns.
The agency has been authorised to plug into big companies’ databases to assess performance.
The tech-driven onsite assessment involves the attachment of FIRS software to the companies’ databases.
This allows FIRS to ascertain the right value of taxes to collect from such institutions before tax fillings.
Section 25 of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (Establishment) Act-as amended under the Finance Act, 2021-gives powers to the Service to deploy proprietary or third party technology for tax administration. This includes tax assessment and information gathering from taxpayers.
Consequently, where the Service desires for the purpose of assessment access to any taxpayer’s database, it would give a 30 day’s notice to the taxpayer requesting that such access be granted.
Failure to grant access is considered an offence under the law and subject to an administrative penalty of N25,000 for each day the failure continues.
