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Nigeria’s VAT rises to N496bn in First Quarter—NBS

Oluwasina Phillip

Nigeria’s Value Added Tax data for the first quarter of 2021 rose to N496.39bn as of the end of first quarter of 2021.

The National Bureau of Statistics revealed this in its report titled, ‘Sectoral distribution of Value Added Tax data for Q1 2021’ on Saturday.


Part of the report stated, “Sectoral distribution of Value Added Tax data for Q1 2021 reflected that the sum of N496.39bn was generated as VAT in Q1 2021 as against N454.69bn generated in Q4 2020 and N324.58bn generated in Q1 2020 representing 9.17 per cent increase quarter-on-quarter and 52.93 per cent increase year-on-year.

Other manufacturing generated the highest amount of VAT with N49.41bn generated and closely followed by professional services generating N42.50bn, state ministries & parastatals generating N26.96bn, while mining generated the least and closely followed by pioneering and textile and garment industry with N48.36m, N77.01m and N289.41m generated respectively.


“Out of the total amounted generated in Q1 2021, N224.85bn was generated as Non-Import VAT locally while N171.66bn was generated as non-import VAT for foreign. The balance of N99.88bn was generated as NCS-Import VAT.”

The Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, had asked all persons who have collected, deducted or withheld taxes to remit all unremitted taxes to the Service within 30 days from today.

The order was contained in a public notice issued and signed by Muhammed Nami, Executive Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service.

Titled “PAYMENT OF OUTSTANDING TAXES BY DEFAULTING COMPANIES, CORPORATIONS AND OTHERS,” the agency gave notice “to all persons (including a company, corporation and any other relevant person) that:

Sections 78, 79, 80, 81 and 82 of the Companies Income Tax Act (CITA) Cap. C21, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria (LFN), 2004 (as amended) and Sections 14, 15 and 16 of the Value Added Tax (VAT) Act Cap. V1, LFN, 2004 (as amended) impose obligations on companies, corporations and other relevant persons, as agents of collection, to collect, deduct or withhold taxes (as the case may be) on supply of goods and services or payments and to remit same to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (the Service).”

Consequently, the Service said that it “shall, without further notice, apply the provisions of Section 31 of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (Establishment) Act, 2007 (as amended) to recover taxes due from the defaulters’ asset in the custody of any person (including but not limited to sums standing to its credit with a financial institution in Nigeria).”

Also, FIRS said it “shall take all necessary steps to prosecute defaulters for willful negligent, tax evasion, unlawful conversion of government property, etc. as the case may be” and that “penalty and interest on all outstanding taxes shall be recovered along with the principal tax liabilities.”

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