VAIDS: FG deploys over 1,700 CTLOs to states – Adeosun

…Rules out extension of March 31 2018 deadline for tax evaders

The Federal Government has recruited and trained 2,190 Community Tax Liaison Officers (CTLOs) under the Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS), the Honourable Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, has said.

The minister has also confirmed the review of the tax profiles of companies that received major payments from the Federal Government in the last five years.

In a statement by the Special Adviser, Media and Communications, to the Minister of Finance, Mr. Oluyinka Akintunde and made available to The Daily Times, Adeosun made this disclosure at the weekend in Lagos, at a workshop organised by the Federal Ministry of Finance, Federal Inland Revenue Service and Joint Tax Board for lawyers, accountants and other professionals advising clients on participation in the VAIDS. She confirmed that a total of 1,710 CTLOs have been deployed to33 States, out of 2,190 tax officers recruited and trained to raise awareness about the scheme and taxation in general.

The CTLOs are currently operating in Adamawa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Enugu, Kaduna, Kwara, Lagos, Nassarawa, Niger, Ogun and Oyo, among others. VAIDS, an initiative of the Federal Ministry of Finance in collaboration with the State Tax Authorities, is a revolutionary programme that provides tax defaulters a nine-month opportunity to voluntarily and truthfully declare previously untaxed assets and incomes.

The tax amnesty period is expected to lapse on March 31, 2018. Job creation is one of the spinoffs of the VAIDS initiative, with the scheme expected to create a total of 7,500 opportunities for Nigerians as CTLOs through the N-Power scheme of the Federal Government.

According to the statement, “Adeosun asserted that there was no hiding place for tax evaders residing in Nigeria or abroad, noting that the Federal Government had put in place a data mining mechanism to fish out evaders.”

The Minister said, “The unique cooperation between the various arms of Federal Government, State Governments and Foreign Governments has provided an unprecedented level of data that allows the Nigerian Gov-ernment to profile taxpayers accurately and identify those whose lifestyle and assets are not consistent with their declared income.

“A lot of data mining is going on daily, both locally and internationally, on property ownership and other items.

Data is an extremely powerful tool that is now being utilized. For instance, we have reviewed all companies that received major payments from the Federal Government in the last 5 years and found that even those who made money from government, under-declared.”

The Minister further noted that the government’s tax compliance team had looked at import records and compared the value of goods imported to the tax declarations of the importers, but the discovery was worrisome as “the variance was disturbingly wide”.

“On personal income taxes, we reviewed property and company ownership as well as registration of high value assets and foreign exchange allocations, which gives us a sense of the lifestyles of the persons. “But again, we found major noncompliance.

In some cases, people declared as little as N10 million as income but purchased expensive property overseas and in Nigeria, registered high specification vehicles and funded luxurious personal events costing multiples of the declared income.

Ganiyu Obaaro