FIRS Issues Public Notice on Expiration of Waiver of Interest and Penalty on TaxPro-Max Platform

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) launched its online platform – TaxPro-Max, in June 2021, for filing of all Naira denominated tax returns. 

To give room for migration to the new platform, and for taxpayers to acclimatize to its use, the FIRS suspended the imposition of late returns penalty, and interest, on Companies Income Tax (CIT) Returns, for 2021 year of assessment, which were due for filing on or before 30 June 2021.

The FIRS, by its Public Notice of 8 October 2021, notified all taxpayers that this grace period for waiver of late returns penalty and interest would expire on 30 November 2021. The FIRS has also directed all taxpayers who are currently enjoying this waiver, to conclude all processes of reconciliation (including withholding tax credit notes reconciliation) and filing of their 2021 CIT returns (and any outstanding back-years’ CIT returns) on the TaxPro-Max platform on or before 30 November 2021.

Any CIT returns not filed after 30 November 2021 will be subject to late returns penalty and interest, calculated right from the due dates of such CIT returns.

It is worthy of note that this waiver of penalty and interest covers only CIT returns. This implies that taxpayers filing Value Added Tax (and other returns) late, from June 2021 when the TaxPro-Max was launched, would still have to pay the automatically calculated penalties on the platform. 

Many taxpayers who were not able to file other tax returns on the platform on or before the due dates, due to technical/ network issues and bugs frequently presented by the platform since its launch in June 2021, have unfortunately not been considered for this general waiver. We however advise that any taxpayer who finds himself or herself in this situation should visit his or her tax office, and request for the necessary waivers, considering that the returns were not late because of default by the taxpayer, but of the TaxPro-Max Platform. 

For any other enquiries regarding filing tax returns or waiver of interest and penalty on the TaxPro-Max Platform, please send an email to clients@vi-m.com.