Seven banks, others pay N99.26bn income tax to FG, states

Reports reaching NEWSVERGE indicate that a whopping sum of N99.26 billion was paid to the Federal and state generating revenue service agencies as tax income from seven Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) and 15 other firms in the country between in the first half of 2017 (H1).

Our checks showed that apart from the seven financial institutions, two industrial companies, four petroleum marketing companies, one conglomerate, one household company and a multinational company were among the total 15 companies paid the sum of N99.26 billion.

But not less than 77.4 per cent or N73.5 billion of the total revenue was paid by the seven financial institutions, as federal government continued to brace up its policies that will enforce tax payment compliance across the country.

Further checks showed that the 16 firms had paid revenue services agencies N99.9 billion between January to June of 2016. United Bank for Africa (UBA) leads in the list of financial institutions tax payment in six months of 2017, followed by Union Bank of Nigeria Plc.

UBA’s paid revenue service N15.19billion in H1 2017, an increase of 98.6 per cent from N7.6billion in H1 2016 while UBN income tax rose by 58.5 per cent to N260 million as against N164 million income tax expenses reported in H1 22016.

As Zenith Bank plc tax expenses dropped by 8.5 per cent to N16.9 billion in H1 2017 from N18.4billon in H1 2016, Guaranty Trust Bank plc’s tax expenses increased by 25 per cent to N17.4 billion from N13.9 billion reported in half year of 2016.

Other leading financial institution include: First Bank of Nigeria, N6.1 billion tax expenses; Access Bank Plc, N12.6 billion and Stanbic IBTC Holdings paid N5.1billion as tax expenses to revenue agencies. Dangote Cement Plc and Dangote Sugar Plc reportedN11.5 billion and N815million as tax expenses between January to June of 2017.

For the petroleum marketing companies, Forte Oil tax expenses closed H1 2017 at N628 million from N2 billion in H1 2016 while Mobil Oil tax payment dropped by 422 per cent to N1.2 billion from N2.09 billion reported in H1 2016. Others are Seplat Petroleum with N342 million tax expenses in H1 2017 and Total Nigeria with N2.7 billion tax expenses in H1 2017.

However, the last three companies, Nigerian Breweries Plc, Unilever Nigeria Plc and Transcorp tax expenses hit N1.16 billion from N988.8 billion reported between January to June of 2016.

According to Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), a total sum of N1.782 trillion was realized as tax revenue between January and July 2017, an increase of about N224 billion from N1.558 trillion amount collected within the same period in 2016.

As the Federal government agency had set tax revenue targets for 2017 based on the 2016-2018 Medium Term Revenue Frame work amounting to N4.89trillion, analysts had expressed that companies are likely to pay more taxes going forward.