By Anthony Areh
The Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Mr Ben Akabueze, says tax on rents, Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) and others is not a new law to the system.
Akabueze made the clarification while fielding questions from participants at a virtual presentation of 2021-2023 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF&FSP) in Abuja.
He said the law that permitted payment of tax on rents and others was an existing one but had not been observed for a very long time.
“It is not new, it is just N50 to be paid and the law has always been there. I recall in early 80s when I started work, the receipt my landlord used to give me, he would paste a physical postage stamp on that receipt.
“Overtime, because the culture of postage has dropped off and that was not been implemented, what FIRS has done now is to make that into electronic stamp that you can still use to comply with the existing law,” he explained.
The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) had last week announced that henceforth, there would be stamp duty paid on house rent and C of O in the service new adhesive duty.
FIRS urged Nigerians and other residents in the country to make sure that documents pertaining to rent or lease agreements for their homes or offices, C of O as well as a list of other common business-related transaction instruments were subject to authentication with the new FIRS Adhesive Stamp duty.
It stated that it was necessary in order to give these instruments the force of law and make them legally bidding on all parties involved in such transactions.
According to the service, the new FIRS Adhesive Stamp Duty was inaugurated in Abuja at the official inauguration of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Audit and Recovery of Back Years Stamp Duties recently.
