Nigerian govt accuses Multichoice of N1.8 trillion tax fraud, moves to freeze accounts

 

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has engaged some commercial banks as agents to freeze and recover N1.8 trillion from accounts of MultiChoice Nigeria Limited And MultiChoice Africa.

 

This is contained in a statement issued by Abdullahi Ahmad, Director, Communications and Liaison Department of FIRS in Abuja on Thursday.

 

Multichoice is the owner of the satellite television, DSTV, a popular subscription-based platform in Nigeria.

 

The FIRS explained that the decision to appoint the banks as agents and to freeze the accounts was as a result of the groups’ continued refusal to grant FIRS access to their servers for audit.

 

The service said it discovered that the companies persistently breached all agreements and undertakings with the Service.

 

The Executive Chairman FIRS, Muhammad Nami, was quoted as saying, “the companies would not promptly respond to correspondences, they lacked data integrity and are not transparent as they continually deny FIRS access to their records.

 

“Particularly, MCN has avoided giving the FIRS accurate information on the number of its subscribers and income.

 

“The companies are involved in the under-remittance of taxes which necessitated a critical review of the tax-compliance level of the company,” Mr Nami stated.

 

The service added that the groups’ performance did not reflect in their tax obligations and compliance level in the country.