Nigeria Tax Highlights – July 2020

Welcome to the monthly series on Nigeria Tax Highlights. In this summary, we have put together the top 5 events that will bring us up to speed with the Nigerian taxation for July 2020. Here are the five (5) blog posts that shaped the Nigerian tax space in July 2020.

Recap of tax news in July 2020

  • The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) extended the waiver on penalty and interest on outstanding liabilities by two months. To qualify, a taxpayer must meet specific conditions and pay the full principal sum by August 31, 2020. More detail on the interest and penalty waiver is available here.

  • Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) granted a waiver on penalty and interest on outstanding tax audit liabilities from 2009 to 2015. LIRS also offered tax credit on COVID-19 donation and waived the penalty for the late filing of returns that were due from March and May 2020. Keep reading.
  • FIRS released three new forms for filing monthly Value Added Tax (VAT) returns. Two VAT Form 002 and one VAT Form 006. More details on the tax forms are available here.

     

  • FIRS allowed taxpayers an additional time of seven days to file returns. It covers 2020 income tax returns as well as the value added tax and withholding tax returns for July 2020. To read the full article, check here.

     

  • Further to the amendments to the Stamp Duties Act 2004, FIRS released a public notice on stamp duties (SD) in Nigeria relating to the rates, scope of transactions, and penalty. Keep reading.

While two tax authorities offered incentives to ease the financial burden of taxpayers in Nigeria, the public notice on SD attracted a lot of debate on the accuracy of the SD rate for rent agreement as well as whether FIRS can print postage stamps. A copy of the snapshot for the month is in the download link below.