MTN Nigeria Communications Plc has appealed the decision of the Tax Appeal Tribunal (TAT) over the payment of $72.5 million fine to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
Recall that a Tax Appeal Tribunal in Lagos had last week ordered MTN Nigeria to pay $72.6 million in overdue taxes.
TAT claimed the amount is for unpaid taxes between 2007 and 2017.
A five-person tribunal rendered its decision in response to an appeal filed by MTN Nigeria against the Federal Inland Revenue Service’s request for payment of the unpaid tax.
Reacting to the decision, Tobechukwu Okigbo, chief corporate services and sustainability officer at MTN Nigeria, said that “we are appealing”
Okigbo said that “This is a significant reduction from the amount the AG had demanded undergirding MTN’s insistence that we did nothing wrong;
“Tax disputes are normal. The process of resolving these disputes, when and if they arise, is very important and MTNN is just following that process;
“It is important to note that MTN’s argument has always been that we will follow established processes in this and any other tax dispute. Our robust challenge of the AG’s demand at the time was premised on tax issues being outside his remit;
“Disputes like this and how they are resolved helps build and strengthen the system, which makes it imperative for broader push for fiscal policy reforms which will improve affordability for consumers and incentivize investments by operators”
Meanwhile, MTN Nigeria has released results for the quarter ended 30 September, updating the markets of the TAT’s decision to uphold a principal VAT liability of $47.8 million.
The telco recognized additional unrealized foreign-exchange losses on outstanding matured trade obligations and increased net finance costs for the six months through June after incorrectly measuring them before, it said in a statement on Monday.
That means MTN Group’s earnings per share for the first half were also restated and are now 13% lower than the Johannesburg-based company reported previously.
