South African entertainment giant Multichoice Group is reported to have failed to return tax money, and the House of Representatives has directed its Committee on Finance to look into this matter.
The House’s resolution came about as a result of the motion “Need to investigate the alleged unremitted N1.8tn and $342m tax revenues owed the Federation by Multichoice Group” being adopted.
The sponsor of the motion and member from the Bida/Gbako/Katcha Federal Constituency in Niger State, Saidu Abdullahi, was invited to lead the debate on the broad principles of the motion. He stated that the House’s authority to investigate multichoice stems from Sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitutions (as amended).
Multichoice, a well-known international company with operations in Nigeria, has been charged with failing to pay taxes owed to the Federation, as demonstrated by information that was withheld from submissions made in their home nation, according to Abdullahi.
The lawmaker stated that the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) conducted a back audit and investigation from 2011 to 2020 after hiring a consultant in 2021 under a whistleblower contract to audit Multichoice Nigeria’s and MultiChoice Africa’s tax obligations and determine the company’s tax indebtedness to the nation.
The House, “Cognizant of the previous attempts by FIRS to recover the unpaid taxes through legal means; including court proceedings and the subsequent resolution to settle out of the court by both parties has not yielded the desired result, observes that the systems audit and investigation revealed enormous indebtedness to the tune of over N1.8 tn in back total taxes for MultiChoice Nigeria, and $342m in Value-added tax, for MultiChoice Africa that had never paid any taxes since they started business operations in Nigeria. Both amounts were levied upon the Multichoice Group by the FIRS,” he added.
Despite this, Abdullahi claimed that “a foreign interest is being courted to purchase Multichoice Nigeria and Multichoice Group subsidiaries in Nigeria, despite outstanding tax debt.”
“Nigeria may lose huge revenue that can inject life into the economy if urgent actions are not taken to recover the tax revenues from the Multichoice Group,” asserts Abdullahi.