The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has revealed its intentions to ensure that skit makers, influencers, and digital content creators in Nigeria pay taxes.
Dare Adekambi, the Special Adviser on Media to the chairman of FIRS, shared this information with newsmen, highlighting that social media content creators and influencers are a significant group of tax evaders.
Adekambi mentioned that FIRS plans to initiate discussions with these entertainers, urging them to voluntarily pay taxes. If this appeal is unsuccessful, the service will resort to enforcement measures to ensure tax compliance.
“They are not paying. Skit makers, influencers and other content creators who are making money using digital platforms need to be paying tax. There is a law in Nigeria that requires everybody who earns income to pay tax. They earn in dollars. Tax is a civic obligation; civil servants are paying, so they also have to pay.
The CAC’s Registrar-General and the FIRS chairman recently discussed how they can work together in bringing them into the tax net. The challenge is how to track them, but we are looking into it,” Adekambi said.
He stressed that the FIRS would meet with content creators and influencers and make them see why they should voluntarily pay tax but “if our friendly approach is taken for granted, then we will go for enforcement,” he added.
Speaking further, Adekambi argued that social media content creators and influencers pay taxes in developed countries, the social media companies also pay taxes, so those who use the platform to make money should also pay taxes to the government.
“If Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social media platforms are paying taxes to the government, why would people using those platforms to create content and make money not pay? By the time a committee is set up to look into it, a broad spectrum of activities will be covered.
There is a way the government monitors everything in other climes. One of the cardinal goals of the current FIRS chairman is to leverage technology and data. When you have these, revenue will be predictable and it will be easy for the government to plan,” he said