Senate
Probes Alleged Diversion Of N20tn Stamp Duties
The Senate has instructed its standing committees
on Finance and Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions to probe
allegations of unremitted stamp duties revenue, valued at about N20 billion in
the last five years.
The committees are expected to report their findings,
observations and recommendations to the Senate within eight weeks.
The Senate accused some agencies saddled with the
responsibilities of collecting the funds of systemic diversion of huge revenue
from stamp duties collection on the electronic transfer receipt on online bank
transactions and the necessity to demand notice on all unremitted stamp duties.
It said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)
declared in 2013 that stamp duties revenue accruals from five states only was
over N160 billion.
In a motion titled ‘Urgent need to investigate
allegations of Unremitted Stamp Duty Revenue running into trillions of naira’,
and sponsored by Senator John Enoh and ten others, the Senate alleged that a
total volume of N20 trillion was not paid into the Federation Account between
2015 and 2017.
“The Stamp Duty Act is one of the oldest and
enduring laws in Nigeria since 1939 and that application of stamp duties has
institutionally been a significant revenue earner for both Federal and State
Governments since independence, thus accounting for almost a quarter of the
taxation resources annually.
“The provision for stamp duty in the revenue
framework of the nation’s annual budget for 2015, 2016 and 2017 has been N8.713
billion, N66.138 billion and N16.96 billion respectively,” Senator Enoh said in
his motion.
Senator Suleiman Hukunyi from Kaduna State, in
his remarks, called for a thorough probe. He said the figures of monies
realised since 2015 do not add up.
Senate Probes Alleged Diversion Of N20tn Stamp Duties
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Tuesday, November 14, 2017
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