Nigerian Government To Go After Skit Makers And Influencers Over Tax Payment

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has announced its intention to ensure that skit makers, influencers, and digital content creators in Nigeria fulfill their tax obligations.

Dare Adekambi, the Special Adviser on Media to the chairman of FIRS, shared this information with newsmen, emphasizing that social media content creators and influencers constitute a significant segment of tax evaders.

According to Adekambi, FIRS plans to initiate discussions with entertainers, encouraging them to voluntarily comply with tax payments.

The Registrar-General of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) and the FIRS chairman have recently explored collaboration to bring these digital content creators into the tax net.

Despite acknowledging the challenge of tracking them, Adekambi affirmed that FIRS is actively investigating solutions.

They are not paying. Skit makers, influencers and other content creators who are making money using digital platforms need to be paying tax.

“There is a law in Nigeria that requires everybody who earns income to pay tax. They earn in dollars. Tax is a civic obligation; civil servants are paying, so they also have to pay.

The CAC’s Registrar-General and the FIRS chairman recently discussed how they can work together in bringing them into the tax net. The challenge is how to track them, but we are looking into it,” Adekambi said.

He stressed that the FIRS would meet with content creators and influencers and make them see why they should voluntarily pay tax but “if our friendly approach is taken for granted, then we will go for enforcement,” he added.

Adekambi argued that in developed countries, social media content creators and influencers already pay taxes, highlighting the need for Nigeria to adopt a similar approach.

He questioned why those making money on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter should not contribute taxes when the platforms themselves pay taxes to the government.

Adekambi emphasized the FIRS’s commitment to leveraging technology and data to achieve its goals, aligning with the chairman’s vision to enhance revenue predictability and facilitate effective government planning.

“If Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms are paying taxes to the government, why would people using those platforms to create content and make money not pay? By the time a committee is set up to look into it, a broad spectrum of activities will be covered.

There is a way the government monitors everything in other climes. One of the cardinal goals of the current FIRS chairman is to leverage technology and data. When you have these, revenue will be predictable and it will be easy for the government to plan,” he said.

KanyiDaily recalls that Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) recently closed 34 corporate organizations because they didn’t pay their employees’ income taxes and didn’t follow the rules for charging and remitting consumption taxes in the hospitality sector.