By Christiana Ekpa
The House of Representatives Committee on Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has summoned Commercial Banks over alleged under remittance of Education Tax(EDT)
The committee further asked the Banks to appear alongside its tax consultant to reconcile the EDT computation not remitted to TETFund by the bank between 2011 and 2022.
Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Mariam Odinaka Onuoha gave the directive when some banks appeared before the committee to defend their EDT remittances in Abuja on Tuesday.
She alleged that there were disparities in the EDT remittances submitted by the Banks to the FIRS over the years, adding that what was computed by the banks auditors did not tallied with tax consultants.
“The bone of contention has always been that the banks seem to be relying on a purported exemption order which clearly mentioned company income Tax exemption order of 2011.
“We have asked the banka to produce an EDT exemption order and they have failed to present it, we have equally presented to them but you cannot liking one exception with the other
He said, this is because in law we don’t summarily assume, because what is not mentioned is deemed excluded
“Because EDT was not mentioned in whatever you have shown and that has been the reason for the back and forth,” she said
Rep. Oluwole Oke (PDP-Osun) in a motion had asked the banks to appear before the committee with the tax consultants with details of tax computation on a yearly basis.
The chairman however said out of the 15 banks invited, about seven were supposed to appear before the committee, but only three of them showed up with three others writing to seek a new date to appear.
Deputy Chairman of the committee Hon Bappa Aliyu Misau observed that First Bank under- remittance its EDT deductions to TETFund, an action which he said was punishable under the law.
Misau said “unfortunately, we do not have the year-by-year breakdown. But the available records you submitted in 2011 was N603,801. Then, in 2012, you owed 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 debit 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”.
