Taxaide introduces new technology to aid tax compliance, data protection

Ahead of the March 30 deadline for personal income tax (PIT) returns, Taxaide, a leading tax management and technology firm, has unveiled technological tools aimed at enhancing a more effective tax administration for Nigerians and tax authorities.

Bidemi Olumide, CEO of Taxaide, said the firm, through its technology development subsidiary, Taxtech, produced PITApp® to serve as an aggregator of all PIT obligations and urged all taxable Nigerians to ensure that they meet their PIT obligations before the deadline.

“The 2020 PIT filing season is upon Nigerians and the law requires every taxable person to file their tax returns with the designated revenue agency of the state where they are resident in Nigeria,” he said.

“The deadline for doing this in the leap year 2020 is March 30 and, as part of our work in building a more effective tax management system, we have built the PITApp to simplify the PIT returns filing and remittance process for Nigeria tax residents.”

PIT returns are currently fileable with the designated revenue agency of each of the 36 States in Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The failure by a taxable person to file his or her PIT returns is a punishable offence with fines, and imprisonment where the fines are not paid.

Onatoye Onakomaiya, chief technology officer of Taxtech, said PITApp is both a web-based and mobile application service available at www.pitapp.taxit.com.ng and on TBook® (iOS and Google Play Store), the firm’s flagship mobile application.

“The app is designed to make life easier for Nigerian taxpayers; especially in an increasingly technologically-driven world,” he said. “PITApp saves you time and money by reducing resources that would have been spent on undertaking these tasks manually.”

According to Olumide, there are an estimated 900 revenue collecting agencies Federal, State and Local) in the country jostling for the attention of Nigerian taxpayers.

“This is a huge distraction from the core economic activities that should generate the tax in the first place,” he said. “Every taxable person or organisation should focus on its core commercial mandate while leaving the operational aspects of their tax compliance to accredited tax managers. This is the essence of Taxaide; to take care of those distractions. From tax audits management, to payroll management, to PIT management, to corporate income taxes management, to the management of transaction taxes as Value Added Tax, Withholding Tax, etc.”

March 15, 2020 is the deadline for organisations that are personal data controllers or administrators to file their annual data protection audit reports with Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).

According to the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR), which NITDA released on 25 January 2019, the failure to file could attract pecuniary sanctions of up to 2% of the global turnover of the errant organisation or N10 million, whichever is higher. Since the release of the NDPR, a significant number of Personal Data Controllers or Administrators have seen reasons to be compliant with the NDPR and avoid the wrath of NITDA.