FIRS sets April 12 as deadline to obtain obtain TIN

Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has given a timeline of April 12, 2020 for all taxpayers and organisations to obtain Tax Identification Numbers (TINs). FIRS expects all documents supporting business transactions to display the TIN before April 12, 2020. This deadline was given by the FIRS in a public notice signed by its Chairman, Muhammed Nami. The notice stated that every company or business is to provide the number to relevant providers of financial services not later 12th April 2020. This would be done in order for the update to be done in their existing records of accounts opened before the Finance Act 2019 came into effect.

The FIRS also stated that banks and other financial institutions are required to request for TIN as a precondition for opening new accounts for companies and any other business. The FIRS went on to explain in the notice that, “Every person engaged in banking and other financial services in Nigeria shall require all companies to provide their TIN as precondition for opening an account or in case of an account already opened within three months of the passage of this act, the bank requires such TIN to be provided by all companies as precondition for continued operation of their bank accounts.”

Meanwhile, FIRS notified taxpayers in a separate notice that payment of tax is to be made on or before the due date of filing in one lump sum or instalment. This is said to be in line with the amendments to Section 77 of the Companies Income Tax Act, (CITA) by Section 18 of the Finance Act. FIRS added that any tax due and unpaid by the due date of filing shall attract interest and penalties as provided in the extant tax laws. Banks will be required to request Tax Identification Numbers (TINs) before opening accounts for individuals while existing account holders must provide their TINs to continue operating their accounts. Emails are to be accepted by the tax authorities as a formal channel of correspondence with taxpayers. Banks in Nigeria currently demand TINs under the instruction of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS). With the new tax policy, TIN is now a critical KYC information required by banks which inadvertently gives the FIRS access into the banking transactions of taxpayers.