The President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government has extended his fight against corruption to multinational companies operating within the shores of the country.
Information Minister, Lai Mohammed, while disclosing this to State House Correspondents at the Presidential Villa, Abuja at the end of yesterday’s Federal Executive Council meeting, said the government had lost over N1trillion as a result of tax evasion by multinational companies.
The Minister disclosed that the government had approved a multilateral competent agreement and the exchange of inter-country report that would prevent the violation of tax laws and tax evasion by multinational companies.
Mohammed said, “Where multinational companies operate in more than one country, it is quite easy for them to move profit from one territory to another territory where the tax laws are very favourable to them and what has happened over the years is that the revenue companies have lost a lot of money.
“As at the last count over N1 trillion has been lost over a period of time and the revenue companies have found that they were losing more money in terms of tax evasion and avoidance than what they were even receiving as grants from multinational agencies.
“So this is a law that provides that if a company like MTN or Nestle for instance, is operating in Nigeria, not only must he file returns on his activities in Nigeria, he must also file returns on his activities in every other country that they are doing business so that you can see from there whether there is any attempt to hide figures.
“Apart from shoring up our finances, I think it is part of the fight against corruption and it also enhances transparency.”
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