Why stamp duty collection will be rigorously pursued-Nami

The Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Muhammad Nami has stated that the FIRS under his leadership will rigorously pursue the stamp duty collection in order to increase revenue for the federal government.

In a statement by Director, Communications and Liaison Department, FIRS, Abdullahi Ismaila Ahmad quoted Mr Nami as saying “Stamp Duty is essentially a duty chargeable on both physical or electronic instruments. The stamp is used to denote a dutiable instrument either electronically, use of an adhesive stamp or inked with a block die in acknowledgement for duty paid.”

Nami added: “In Nigeria, Stamp Duties administration is governed by the Stamp Duties Act, CAP S8, LFN 2004 (as amended) whose forerunner was the Ordinance 41 of 1939. The Stamp Duties Act has therefore undergone several amendments over the years up to the Finance Act of 2019. The most recent amendment recognizes the technology, economic realities, e-commerce and cross border transactions.

“Stamp duties is basically charged in two forms, either ad valorem; where duty payable is a percentage of the consideration on an instrument or a fixed sum irrespective of the consideration on dutiable instrument or document. With the Finance Act, 2019, FIRS is the sole competent tax authority to assess, collect and account for Stamp Duty in Nigeria.”

FIRS also announced that despite the global economic downturn triggered by COVID-19 which has also had a significant impact on the Nigerian economy, it has recorded a growth of 1,000 per cent in revenue accruing from Stamp Duty collection in the first five months of 2020.

Consequently, the agency remitted N66 billion into the Federation Account through the Stamp Duty instrument from January 2020 to May 2020.

This highly supersedes the total Stamp Duty collection from January 2019 to December 2019 which was only N18 billion even when the economy ran at full steam and had no global pandemic to deal with.

Recall that the Federal Government inaugurated the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Audit and Recovery of Back Years Stamp Duties on Tuesday in Abuja during which a new FIRS Adhesive Stamp was also unveiled by Senate President Ahmed Lawan.