Business
Importers Urged To Obtain TIN Before Daeadline
Importers across the country have been advised to obtain the Taxpayers Identification Number (TIN) before the March 2012 deadline.
A member of the implementation committee of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and Customs Import Taxpayers Identification Number (TIN) Scheme, Dera Nnadi, who gave the advice while speaking to newsmen recently, said the scheme was designed to cater for their best interest and urged them not to wait till the March deadline before obtaining their TIN.
He said that in the usual Nigerian practice, some importers had refused to take advantage of the time given for them to procure the TIN number, but wanted to wait for sanctions before getting the number which was actually to facilitate their business at little or no cost.
“Importers should know that the scheme is for their own good. It is not for extra tax. It is to help facilitate business at the ports, therefore, removing unnecessary bottlenecks,” he said.
Nnadi said that as part of the next phase of sensitizing stakeholders on the scheme, the Nigerian customs Service (NCS) would soon do road shows which would form the occasion to break down the nitty-gritty for every importer or port users to understand.
“We have already done media advert, we have already done radio jingles, explaining these things to the people. We are planning road shows to make it easy for people to key into this,” he said
He noted that it was wrong for any importer to think the scheme was designed to impoverish them.