Nami Triggers FIRS Rivalry with NIPOST Over Stamp Duties Charges
- Nami counters claim that NIPOST is the collector of stamp duties charge a week after Minister Pantami spoke about legality
- Confrontation between FIRS and NIPOST over which agency has the right to collect stamp duties charge had been on since 2013
- The FIRS boss said the postal service is only in charge of producing stamps, not collecting charges from stamp duties
The Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mohammed Nami, has countered claims that the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) is in charge of the collection of stamp duties charge.
Last week, the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, stated that only NIPOST had the legal right to produce stamp duties, but Nami stated that it doesn't mean NIPOST is in charge of the collection of stamp charges.
What you need to know about controversial stamp duties
There have been confrontations between both agencies of the government. While NIPOST operates under the ministry of communications, FIRS is under the Ministry of finance. Both ministries have been pulling the strings behind the faceoff.
NIPOST had accused FIRS of trying to steal its idea and render its workers jobless, while the tax administration had insisted collection of stamp duties is under the legal right of its agency.
The confrontation had escalated in 2019, when the workers of the postal service took to the street, protesting against the Minister of Finance, Ahmed Zainab. Both agencies also took to Twitter to throw accusations.
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Pantami, Nami awakens stamp duties faceoff
The disagreement went silent for some months but was awaken when Pantami, on March 11, 2021, said NIPOST alone has the legal right to produce the stamp duties charge.
Source: Twitter
Reacting to Pantami's comment, Nami said the minister was misquoted in a media report that the postal service alone receives charges from stamps.
The tax administrator boss said he was made aware of the report misquoting Pantami on the administration of stamp duties. Nami said the Minister was misquoted by the media, which insinuated that FIRS was not in charge of revenue collection from stamp duties.
He said the reports were written out-of-context, as NIPOST would produce the adhesive stamps required by FIRS to denote Stamp Duties. The statement was said to be in line with S.2 of the Stamp Duties Act (as amended by Section 46 of the Finance Act 2020).
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Nami lay claim to stamp duties charges
In his response in a post published on FIRS Twitter handle, Nami urged the public, including taxpayers and tax practitioners to not be confused by the misquoted statement attributed to Pantami
Meanwhile, Legit.ng had earlier reported that the naira fell against the dollar on Tuesday. The naira ended trading on Tuesday at N409.75 to one dollar, having ended the previous day at N408.90.
Within Monday and Tuesday, the forex turnover at the investors and exporters window dropped to $32.33 million yesterday, from $50.67 million on Monday.
Fakoyejo Olalekan is a Business and Financial Journalist with over three years of experience in covering finance and business activities within Nigeria and offshore. Prior to joining Legit.ng, he worked at Nairametrics where he wrote financial and investment analysis articles. Olalekan is a resourceful and result-driven journalist with a track record for conducting extensive research and interviews to produce articles that provide different perspectives to market activities.
Source: Legit.ng
