Only CITN Members Can File Tax Returns- FIRS

Beginning from January 2 next year, only tax returns with the seal of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) will be treated by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).
The new rule however allows tax payers who do not need the service of tax practitioners to file in their returns directly to the FIRS without the CITN seal.
This new requirements from the Service was conveyed in a letter to the Institute and had also been sent to tax practitioners to get them prepared ahead of the January 2 deadline.
In a letter dated April 23 and referenced FIRS/EC/MISC/5435/18/57 to the Registrar of CITN, Tunde Fowler, the FIRS Executive Secretary, ordered that the Institute’s seal must appear on all tax returns to be submitted to the Service.
“That on the basis of the Court pronouncement, FIRS will cooperate with CITN, by ensuring that all tax practitioners affix CITN seal to tax returns prepared and submitted to FIRS on behalf of tax payers”.
“That tax payers who do not need the service of tax practitioners and who decide to file their returns directly would not be under any obligation to comply with affixing of CITN seal to their tax returns filed with the FIRS”.
“This would become effective on the 2nd of January 2019. This period would enable those tax practitioners who do not have the CITN seal to regularize their status with CITN” Fowler stated.
With this development, tax practitioners who are non-member of the institute now have Nine months grace period to join CITN or leave the practice.
The new rule by the FIRS which has now mandated all practicing accountants with interest in tax matters to register with the Tax Institute, is upon a request from the Institute to rid the practice of quacks. CITN’s request was predicated on several court rulings that taxation is a distinct profession and that only the CITN has the right to regulate taxation practice in the country.
The Institute had demanded cooperation from the Service in the implementation of the court rulings to ensure that all tax practitioners who collect fees for their services, affix CITN seal on tax returns to the Service.
CITN in its request exclude tax payers who can do so on their own from the new guideline to swell its rank.
Insidebusiness