By Abdallah el-Kurebe, Editor
The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) has denied alleged default in the payment of taxes to Rivers State Internal Revenue Services (RIRS).
A statement by the Commission’s Director of Corporate Affairs, Charles Obi Odili made available to Newsdiaryonline Wednesday said according to its records, the claim that it owed the Services an outstanding N50,000,000.000.00 isnot correct.
“It is rather curious that the RIRS would rush to seal the gates of the Commission, disrupting activities at its headquarters, without any form of notification.
“We have had cause to discuss our tax obligations with officials of the RIRS in the past and all the grey areas were resolved amicably. It is, therefore, an act of bad faith for the revenue agency to begin to take actions that impugns on the reputation of an interventionist agency that is serving the people of the Niger Delta region.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the Commission has as recently as January this year settled its outstanding tax obligations to the RIRS,” the Commission stated.
NDDC also said it paid all Withholding Taxes as well as Pay-As-You-Earn up to March 2019.
“We have cleared all Withholding tax (WHT) on enterprises and Pay as your earn (PAYE) up to March, 2019, including arrears. If there is any other issue of outstanding tax obligation (underpayment), it will only come up after reconciliation. Until then we cannot establish or determine under payment or over-payment. And our books are open for audit or reconciliation.
“It is not right for only one party to claim to have established that there is under payment or over-payment. That can only come to play after a thorough audit exercise.
“We can under the circumstances safely say that the RIRS came to seal off our premises without due process. As notice of non-compliance was neither issued nor served on NDDC before the RIRS action,” the Commission further stated.
It therefore called on RIRS to closure seal on its premises in order to pave the way for dialogue.
“We therefore call on the RIRS to remove the sealing order on our premises to enable both parties enter into dialogue and agreeably resolve our differences,” NDDC stated.
