Companies are evading two per cent Education Tax, says TETFund

The Federal Government has disclosed that many companies operating in Nigeria are not remitting their statutory two per cent profit into the Education Tax Fund.

These companies were said to have evaded several billions of naira in taxes.

All incorporated companies in Nigeria are required to pay two per cent (2%) of their assessable profit into an Education Tax Fund.

By Section 3 of the Education Tax Act, CAP E-4, LFN, 2004, the collected Education Tax is disbursed through an Education Trust Fund for the rehabilitation, restoration and consolidation of educational institutions in Nigeria.

The new Executive Secretary of Tertiary Education Tax Fund (TETFund), Dr. Abdullahi Bichi Baffa who disclosed this in an interview with journalists yesterday in Abuja, said getting the tax evaders to fulfill their tax obligations and ensuring unpaid taxes are remitted to the fund is a major priority of the government.

He said: “There are still many companies operating in Nigeria that are not remitting their Education Tax and we are going to continue to pursue the compliance of companies to pay this tax.

“I believe that would beef-up the revenue base of the fund.

The executive secretary lamented that the fall in the global oil prices has affected the revenue of the fund.

“The revenue is dwindling because bulk of the tax are coming from oil companies and oil related business and we are aware that the cost of oil globally has been going down, so the revenue of the fund has also dwindled.”