https://www.lagostimes.com/2021/04/16/kano-seals-five-gt-bank-branches-over-unpaid-taxes/

Several customers of GTBank were unable to access the bank’s premises on Tuesday after officials of Kano State Internal Revenue Service (KIRS) sealed five branches of Nigeria’s largest bank by market capitalisation as they enforced a Kano State High Court’s order authorizing the agency to seal of the banks’ premises over its failure to audit and pay taxes totalling N1,005,687,755.55 between 2014 and 2019. The branches include those situated at Murtala Muhammad Way, Wapa, Zaria Road, Bachirawa and France Road.

KIRS’s Legal Director of the agency Bashir Yusuf Madobi, said that the agency was forced to act after GTBank refused to pay the accrued amount and provide copies of their audited reports to the agency’s officials.

He said, “What irritated us to take this action is that right from the initial stage, we have demanded for some documents from them which they failed to honour us and give us the document (sic). But, still the first action we will take is to still request for this documents (sic). It is based on them that we will come with actual figure of the liability due to the KIRS (sic).

“As a revenue authority, KIRS is saddled with the responsibility of enforcing payment of taxes which are due.

“One of the procedures we follow in order to enforce payment of due tax is through the institution a court case before a competent court. So, we decided to file this case before the State High Court on ex-parte application (sic).

“So, we the KIRS as plaintiff after furnishing the court with all the evidences, the court satisfied that the tax is due, and based on that, it granted us judgement that we should go and seal the property of GT Bank.

“This is why we went there today to enforce the judgment and enforce the payment of due tax as provided under the extant revenue laws.

“The money is over N1bn. The next line of action is we expect them to come so that we sit down and sort it out if they are willing to do so,” Mr Madobi said.

KIRS said the bank must pay a minimum of 25 percent of the liability and provide the earlier requested documents before the branches are reopened.

Mr Madobi said that GTBank is also expected to pay an additional 10 percent of the total revenue amount until the matter is resolved in court.

This is not the first time that GTBank is having a run in with state tax authorities. In December 2020, two branches of the Guaranty Trust Bank (GTBank) in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State were closed for about three days by the Akwa Ibom Internal Revenue Service after the agency obtained a court order over unpaid N184 million in taxes.

An official of the revenue agency, Leo Umanah, had said GTBank failed to settle its outstanding liabilities to the Akwa Ibom state government, despite a warning issued to it since February 2020.

GTBank’s spokesperson Oyinade Ogunade did not respond to an email seeking comment from the Lagos Times.

GTBank’s shares closed at $3.74 at the London Stock Exchange and N28.85 at the NGX.