…Clears Air On Payment Of Tax By Churches, Mosques
The Executive Chairman of Rivers State Internal Revenue Service, Adoage Norteh says Churches and Mosques are registered with Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) under non profit making organizations and therefore exempted from paying tax.
He however, stressed that the pastors, overseers, Imams and other staff of such Churches and Mosques who make a living from their services to the Churches and Mosques must as an obligation, pay their taxes as income tax is based on income of workers.
Income tax, he said is different from Churches and Mosques being taxed.
Having put to rest the argument on whether or not Churches and Mosques should pay taxes, Adoage Norteh said every citizen resident in Rivers State is expected to pay their taxes as at when due or risk prosecution in accordance with the tax laws of the State.
The State chief tax collector said it is contradictory and even ungodly for a pastor or church overseer who refuses to pay his tax under the cover of church to approach the tax office when in need to ask for tax clearance, for a tax he or she did not pay. Tax clearance, he emphasized, is for those who not only pay their taxes but do so regularly.
Chief Adoage Norteh while disclosing all the strategies being employed to plug all leakages said with the new tax regime in place, business operators who pair up in shops to showcase their wares and operate same as one shop will be detected as well as members of unions who use their membership of unions to cover up their business as a way of evading tax payment.
While the State Revenue Service needs the unions, the Executive Chairman noted, it is by no means a licence to give protection to members from paying their taxes.
To get around this issue therefore, the chairman added, the leadership of such unions will be engaged by the new tax regime to make available the identities of all their members and will no longer collect the taxes of such members on behalf of the revenue authority or serve as consultants unless agreed to, by the authority on conditions solely given by the tax authority.
All this, the executive chairman said, is for the good and interest of the tax payers to get around the activities of touts and acts that could lead to double taxation on the tax payers.
Meanwhile, three persons are already in detention for allegedly printing Rivers State government authorization used in canvassing for taxes from shopowners, companies etc. The Executive Chairman of Rivers State Internal Revenue Service disclosed this during the meeting with stakeholders to kickstart the informal sector taxes and levies drive due to commence July 1.
