FIRS’ Executive Chairman, Muhammad Nami, announced this in a statement personally signed by him over the weekend.

The exercise is scheduled to take place between January 2 and 31, 2020.

Nami explained that the objective was to address the difficulties facing taxpayers and to assist them in meeting their obligations as they might need the TCC.

According to him, the offer to ease issuance of TCC is in accordance with the provisions of Section 101 (1) of CITA LFN 2004 and in conformity with Self-Assessment Regulation, 2011.

The FIRS boss, however, warned that FIRS would not hesitate to invoke the provisions of the law against any taxpayer found to have misled the agency to issue a TCC.

The statement reads in full:

Following the numerous complaints received from our esteemed taxpayers with respect to difficulties encountered before obtaining Tax Clearance Certificate (TCC) and the fact that taxpayers need TCC to enable them to, inter alia, seek and obtain contracts and loans, renew permits, registrations, franchises, agreements and/or licenses that will invariably generate revenue from which taxes will be paid, Management has looked into the above complaints and has taken steps to ease the process of obtaining TCC.

Consequently, notice is hereby given that the Service has put in place machinery to issue 2020 TCC to all eligible taxpayers from 2nd January to 31st January 2020.

The Service may not hesitate to use enforcement activities including imposition of lien on bank accounts of such defaulting companies to recover any outstanding debts when it discovers that the taxpayer has misled the Service in her duty to observe tax compliance.

The issuance of TCC to ease the burden of taxpayers is in line with the provisions of Section 101 (1) of CITA LFN 2004 and in conformity with Self-Assessment Regulation, 2011.

Taxpayers are therefore encouraged to take advantage of this initiative and apply for their 2020 TCC, as soon as possible.