Reps Invite Banks Over Non-remittance Of Education Taxes

House of Representatives Committee on Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has invited some commercial banks to appear before it with their tax consultants to reconcile the education tax Computation not remitted by the banks from 2011 to 2022.

The chairman of the committee, Hon. Miriam Onuoha, issued the invitation when some banks appeared before the panel to defend their no- remittance of education taxes over the years at a public hearing on monitoring of collection, utilization and other associated services relating to education tax from 2011 – 2022 on Tuesday.

Onuoha said there were disparities between the figures that were in the banks’ financial statements as provisions for that purpose and what the banks actually remitted to Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

The committee chairman said t of the 15 banks invited, about seven were supposed to appear before the panel yesterday, while only three of them showed up with three other writing to seek a new date to appear.

The deputy chairman of the committee, Hon. Bappa Aliyu Misau, observed that a particular bank under-remitted its education tax deductions to TETFund, an action which, he said, was punishable under the law.

Misau said, “unfortunately, you do not have the year-by-year breakdown but the available records you submitted in 2011 was N603,801. Then, in 2012, you are owing N301,263,135, in 2013, you have a credit balance of N102,713,615.

“Again, in 2014, you had a credit of N2.933, 659, then if you go to 2015, you have N25 million as outstanding, in 2017, N169,852,600 outstanding, in 2018, you have N98 million outstanding, in 2012, you paid N7.877,451 then in 2020, N148 million credit, in 2021, N269,618,626.6 debit.

 “Therefore, in 2022, you had N3.748,984, 654.64. Then you add it up, you sum the credit and the debit, you end up with N3.749,353,260 outstanding. You know there is a penalty for non-remittance,” he said.

An executive director of the bank, Bashir Yusuf, who represented the bank at the meeting, told the lawmakers that between 2011 and 2022, the bank posted a profit before tax (PBT) of N795,123 billion.

In his comments, the president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Professor Victor Osodeke, urged the federal government to urgently stop tax waivers meant to fund tertiary institutions in the country.

Osodeke linked the poor funding of tertiary institutions and incessant industrial actions to waivers granted to banks and other private institutions.