By Disun Amosun
House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts, PAC has assured that the 9th National Assembly would support the Federal Capital Territory, FCT Inland Revenue Services, FCT- IRS and other revenue generating agencies to enhance their operations.
The Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Wale Oke gave the assurance when the Acting Executive Chairman of the Service, Mr. Haruna Abdullahi appeared before the Committee on various issues raised against the service which was referred to it by the House at plenary.
He advised that the Parliament should avail the opportunities that could assist it for effective operations for the Abuja residents and the entire country.
During the meeting, the Federal Capital Territory Internal Revenue Service had disclosed that it had introduced the Electronic Tax Clearance Certificate (E-TCC) to improve service delivery and checkmate activities of fraudsters who could forge such documents.
Abdullahi explained that the E-TCC had fortified the process thereby making it difficult for anyone to forge such documents because of the introduction of QR CODE.
He said this effort would help the Service not to be short-changed as well as boost revenue for the FCT.
He further explained that Tax Clearance Certificate (TCC) was a document being issued by the Tax Authority to certify that an individual or a business was compliant with the appropriate requirements as stated by law within a stipulated period of time usually for the three preceding years.
According to him, this is in line with section 85 of the Personal Income Tax Act 2011 as amended, which states that “Whenever the relevant tax authority is of opinion that tax assessed on the income of a person for the three years immediately preceding the current year of assessment has been fully paid or that no tax is due on income or that the person is not liable to tax for any of those three years, it shall issue a tax clearance certificate to the person within two weeks of demand for the certificate by that person or give reasons for the denial.”
Speaking further, he explained that while issuing a tax clearance certificate, due diligence must be carried out to ensure certain conditions were met by the taxpayers and satisfied by the tax authority.
He stated that application for TCC must be made and duly endorsed by the taxpayer and annual income declaration form A and three years income declaration form must also be duly completed and signed by the taxpayer.
