Declare your income’: FG signs agreement with over 100 countries to monitor remote workers accounts

The Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, has revealed that Nigeria has entered into agreements with over 100 countries to gather data of remote workers in a bid to enforce tax remittance.

Oyedele announced this during a webinar hosted by the National Orientation Agency on Wednesday, themed ‘Simplifying Nigeria’s Tax System.’

He answered questions about some of the concerns raised about taxation in the digital economy, particularly for remote workers and online income earners.

According to the tax chairman, regardless of the company or country, every remote worker in Nigeria is obligated to declare their income by themselves.

He said, “For the other categories of people who work online, the kind of people you spoke about, where companies just outsource something to them…you might have five stars, another person has 50.

“The requirement under this new law is that everybody, whether you earn your money from Google or whether you earn it from XYZ Limited in the Bahamas, you have to declare your income yourself. If you fail to do it, the system will then gather intelligence, which is when the money hits your bank account.”

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Oyedele also revealed that Nigeria has a record of every transaction coming into the country and has signed an agreement with over 100 countries to gather data and track Nigerians with money and properties abroad.

“We see this money coming to your Dollar Bank account. If you put the money abroad, Nigeria has signed an agreement with over 100 countries under what is called the Common Reporting Standards. They are already sending us data about Nigerians who have money abroad, property abroad, whether it’s Dubai to the US to Canada to the UK. We have all that information already,”  the tax chief stated.

Oyedele also advised Nigerians to “do the right thing”, otherwise, the government will come knocking.

He said, “Essentially, my point is, if it’s about data, the government can get the data. The primary obligation is to do the right thing yourself. If you fail to do it, the government will then come back to you and say, ‘We know this about you, you haven’t been honest, here’s your presumptive assessment. ’ And at that point, you have to deal with it”

According to Oyedele, Nigeria began engaging with big tech companies a few years ago, challenging the disparity between traditional businesses and online platforms regarding Value Added Tax (VAT).

“If you are doing your business, brick and mortar, pop and mom shop, and you sell a phone and you charge VAT, why should the person that is selling it online not charge VAT?” he said. “We went to these guys and said the services you render is liable to VAT. You are getting an undue advantage by doing it from abroad,” he said.

The tax chairman stressed that the government adopted a collaborative approach rather than confrontation, resulting in successful agreements with the tech firms.

He further said, “We spoke to them, what are your concerns, how can we make it work, and we landed on an agreement. Today I can tell you Nigeria is making billions of dollars from those taxes, from those digital giants without fighting.”

Remote workers in Nigeria have always complained that they are often discriminated against because of their origin, a development that is mostly attributed to the notoriety of fraudsters, also known as Yahoo Yahoo Boys.