Seven United Nations (UN) agencies were indicted by the Borno State Internal Revenue Service (BO-IRS) on Wednesday 26th January, 2022 for evasion of tax.
The agencies which were indicted are the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organisation (WHO), World Food Programme (WFP), United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), the United Nations Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).
BO-IRS justified it’s actions stating that while under international law the agency as a body is exempt from the payment of tax as entities, the privilege does not extend to the staff of the agencies under the UN.
The statement was referring particularly to the contracting partners and local manpower.
The Executive Chairman of the Borno revenue board, Mohammad Alkali, in a statement given on Wednesday, said that some UN bodies had actually complied, those listed have blatantly refused.
“The IOM have complied to the extant laws that compel Nigerians working for UN or foreign organisations to comply with the personal income tax laws, the aforementioned seven UN agencies had refused to comply despite all efforts put in to make them do the needful.” Mohammad Alkali said.
He stated that the UN agencies are required by the provision of the Personal Income Tax CAP P8 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004 to remit funds known as PAYE, which would be derived from Withholding Tax for their workers.
“Other UN agencies and NGO’s who are equally in large taxpayer category are already complying with the provisions of the extant laws as referenced above.” He said.
The chairman said that efforts were made and these listed agencies as well as others were engaged.
According to him correspondences were forwarded and several other actions were taken to facilitate voluntary compliance, but it all came to naught.
He stated that the BO-IRS were familiar with the laws that exonerate humanitarian bodies from enforcing the payment of tax by their workers.
“That was why we demanded them to furnish us with the raw data of their workers as well as individual and enterprise contractors for us to interface with them directly but to no avail.
“So, BO-IRS is left with no option than to employ legitimate means to compel them to do so. And we have already taken steps by serving the UN Agencies herein mentioned notice of seizure of properties which is due to lapse on 24th February, 2022.” Mohammad Alkali said.
The agency intends to make use of Section 68 of the Harmonized Revenue Law in enforcing the mandate, conscripting the Nigerian Police Force as well as the internal enforcement team.
According to Mohammad Akali, the state government has been apprised of the situation.
“It was even the governor that encouraged us to liaise with the UNOCHA through his adviser on the INGO affairs, Mairo Mandara, by writing to them, which we did repeatedly but the seven of them failed to comply.
“They came to our office in June 2021 to ask for the details of what we wanted and after that, they went away and ignored us.” Mohammad Akali said.
One of the communications officers for UNICEF, Geoffery Njoku, said, “We are UN, we do not pay tax. We pay to the UN.”
According to reports, the UN is holding ongoing talks with the government and will respond in time.
