The Last Days Of VAIDS: Why Taxpayers Should Take Advantage Of The Amnesty Programme

TARGET AND SCOPE OF VAIDS

 VAIDS is targeted at taxpayers:

• Who have not been fully declaring their taxable income/assets;

• Who have not been paying tax at all; and/or,

• Who have been under-paying or under-remitting applicable tax.

 Essentially, some of the ways by which taxes are evaded and which the VAIDS is targeted at addressing include:

• Manipulation of accounting records, usually by keeping two or more sets of books;

• Willful non-declaration or underestimation of assets and income by high net-worth individuals especially in the informal sector;

• Use of complex structures in transactions to deliberately evade taxes;

• Non registration for Value-Added-Tax (“VAT”) or charging of VAT without remitting same to the FIRS;

• Non-payment of Capital Gains Tax (“CGT”) on asset disposals.

 The types of taxes which VAIDS covers are:

• Companies Income Tax;

• Personal Income Tax;

• Petroleum Profits Tax;

• Capital Gains Tax;

• Stamp Duties;

• Tertiary Education Tax, and

• All taxes administered by the FIRS as well as those administered by all State Boards of Internal Revenue (“SBIR”).