Nigeria Targets Tax Dodgers

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has threatened compatriots who hold assets abroad to declare them or face prosecution.

As part of his fight against corruption, the president has given people 12 months to register under the Voluntary Offshore Assets Regularization Scheme.

The Nigerian President addressed the matter on his official twitter handled going under the nameSocial embed from twitter @MBuhari:

“I have signed a new Executive Order (EO 008), the Voluntary Offshore Assets Regularization Scheme (VOARS), mandating Nigerian taxpayers who hold offshore assets and incomes to, within a period of 12 months, voluntarily declare those assets and pay taxes on them,” Buhari tweeted.

The president has tweeted that there will be “no hiding place” for those who try to disguise their offshore wealth.

The Office of the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice has been mandated to set up a VOARS in Switzerland for all categories of taxpayers who have defaulted in the declaration of offshore assets and payment of due taxes.

“Defaulting taxpayers who fail to take advantage of VOARS will, at the expiration of the scheme, be subject to investigation and enforcement procedures. With the Automatic Exchange of Information between Nigeria and foreign countries, there will be no hiding place for anyone,” he said.

Billions of dollars of public money are thought to have been transferred abroad by corrupt public officials.

In 2016, Mr Buhari’s government announced that it had recovered $9.1bn (£6.9bn) of money illegally taken abroad, news agency Reuters reported at the time.

The president is running for re-election next year.

(Source: BBC)