You would recall our newsletter of 31 March 2017, sensitizing you on the topic of Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS), as an outcome of the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting held on March 16, 2017.
The Scheme has now been launched at Abuja yesterday, 29 June 2017, with the signing of an executive order on its implementation by the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo.
Through VAIDS, the federal government is asking individuals, high net worth individuals and companies to willingly declare to the tax authority, their ownership rights to assets and incomes earned from all sources and willingly pay the taxes due on such incomes and assets.
The Scheme will embrace all federal and state taxes such as Companies Income Tax, Personal Income Tax, Petroleum Profits Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Stamp Duties, Tertiary Education Tax, Technology Tax etc. and is to be implemented across the thirty-six (36) states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
All taxpayers who are willing to key into the Scheme have therefore been given a nine months’ grace period to 31 March 2018 to come forward and declare/ settle unpaid taxes.
Taxpayers who make full and honest declarations within the grace period will be granted waiver of interest and penalty, immunity from prosecution, confidentiality, exemption from tax audits for the periods covered and flexible payment of tax due.
The Acting President yesterday, urged defaulters to take advantage of the grace period to avoid facing criminal investigation and subsequent prosecution once the grace period is over.
Also, as part of the federal government’s policy to create awareness about tax issues, the Acting President has now declared every Thursday as national “Tax Thursday” to sensitize and educate Nigerians on the need to perform their civic responsibility. To this effect, the federal government is set to recruit and train about 7,500 community tax liaison officers spread across all local governments and communities in Nigeria to sensitize professionals and taxpayers in the country. Other ‘Tax Thursday’ sensitization programmes would also be unveiled in due course.
We believe that this is another big step by the Federal Government to provide a soft-landing for many defaulting taxpayers and promote voluntary tax compliance. Recall the 45-day tax waiver window which was also opened for tax defaulters last year. We therefore urge every affected taxpayer to come forward and take maximum advantage of this 9 months’ grace period.
We, Vi-M Professional Solutions, are well positioned to assist you determine your outstanding tax liabilities (if any) and also provide advisory on practical tax planning measures that you as an individual or company could adopt, as well as available tax incentives for your business/ industry.
For more information and assistance on this, urgently contact us at Vi-M via clients@vi-m.com or call 08075203657/ 08033127498 and we will be available to meet with you at short notice.