Federal Inland Revenue Service Issues Notice Of Compliance Monitoring Visits To RFIs

Following the filing of the first sets of information returns by Nigerian Reporting Financial Institutions (RFIs) in September 2020, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has issued notifications to selected Nigerian RFIs of its intention to carry out compliance monitoring exercise with respect to Nigerian RFIs reporting obligations under the Income Tax (Common Reporting Standard) Regulations, 2019 (the CRS Regulations).

Specifically, the purpose of the CRS compliance monitoring exercise is to:

• Confirm that due diligence procedures adopted on reportable accounts by the RFIs are in line with the CRS Regulations;
• Engage with stakeholders (i.e FIRS and Financial Institutions (FIs)) and educate the Primary Users of RFIs on the necessary due-diligence steps and CRS reporting requirements;
• Obtain feedback on the challenges encountered by RFIs during the last CRS reporting season (i.e. 2020 reporting year) and filing on the AEOI-CRS’ online portal;
• Confirm the process of collecting information reported by RFIs during the last CRS reporting season, including the adoption of the FIRS’ recently issued Self – Certification forms which are expected to be used in collecting information required from account holders of RFIs.

We expect that the compliance monitoring exercise will afford RFIs the opportunity to better understand the implementation of the automatic exchange of financial accounts information system in Nigeria.

As the next CRS reporting/submission is due on or before 31 May 2021, FIRS has emphasized the need for RFIs to ensure that their 2021 CRS information returns are submitted through the CRS reporting portal as and when due. Thus, FIRS has advised that RFIs can commence their CRS filings with effect from 1 April 2021 in order to ensure that errors (if any) are effectively corrected and support (if required) is provided by FIRS’ AEOI team before the filing due date.