FIRS seals off minister’s hotel over tax evasion

The management of Mirage Hotel had to part with N1m part payment to stay open
Article | December 21, 2011 - 11:32am

The Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS), on Tuesday, sealed off Mirage Hotel, Calabar, believed to be owned by a serving minister.

Solomon Ajimotokin, who led the FIRS enforcement team which sealed off the facility for a while, said that the action was taken over the alleged default in the payment of tax for two years.

The hotel was later reopened after its management issued a cheque of N1 million as part-payment of the amount owed.

Ajimotokin had earlier said that the hotel’s management only produced tax records of payment for 2009 and had refused to pay taxes for 2010 and 2011.

He said that FIRS was working within its mandate to ensure that tax defaulters were not allowed to continue to defraud the federal government.

http://dailytimes.com.ng/article/firs-seals-minister%E2%80%99s-hotel-over-tax-evasion

The hotel is owned by the current minister of culture and tourism - Edem Duke.

Thursday, 22 December 2011 00:30
FIRS arrests FCDA boss over N28.2bn unremitted taxes
Written by Ifeanyi Onuba, Abuja

The Federal Inland Revenue Service on Wednesday arrested the Executive Secretary of the Federal Capital Development Authority, Mr. Adamu Ismaila, for N28.2bn unremitted taxes.

Adamu was picked up in his office at about 12.03pm by an enforcement team from the FIRS led by the director in charge of Large Tax Department, Mr. Ajayi Bamidele.

The team said the arrest was a warning to other government ministries, departments and agencies to remit their taxes to the service.

Ismaila, who was detained at the services’ Intelligence and Enforcement Department in Abuja, admitted to the non-remittance of the amount.

He blamed the Treasury Department directly under the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Senator Bala Mohammed, for not remitting the said amount

He said, “I just assumed duty about three weeks ago. My Director of Finance and Administration came with a letter and told me its about remittance of taxes to the FIRS.

“And she told me that they did a reconciliation with your (FIRS) own staff in her office and everything was okay but that the only thing was the remittance point and that she has presented this matter to the treasury for them to make this remittance.

“We do not operate all our accounts, even our payments are made by treasury department for our contracts and even our salary and tax deductions.

“We have a central account in the FCT which is operated by the treasury department under the FCT minister’s office.”

The money included taxes collected by the FCT ministry on behalf of the FIRS from 2006 till date which have not been remitted to the federation account.

Also arrested and detained was another senior official of the FCDA whose identity as at the time of sending this report could not be ascertained.

However, the Director, Abuja Geographic Information System, Isa Jalo, could not be arrested as he allegedly fled when the enforcement team arrived.

The enforcement team was also prevented from entering the main office of the director.

A month ago, the team arrested the chief executives of 31 hotels in Abuja for similar offence.

The arrests were aimed at recovering the N170bn outstanding taxes by government and private organisations.

Following the establishment of the committee charged with the recovery of outstanding tax liabilities of the FCTA and its agencies, it was learnt that a series of meetings were held and a number of decisions were taken.

Our correspondent learnt that the committee reviewed actions taken so far on the issues raised in their report and resolved to give the FCDA an ample opportunity to respond to a letter asking it to remit the said amount of money.

http://www.punchng.com/index.php/news/item/8545-firs-arrests-fcda-boss-over-n282bn-unremitted-taxes