Nume Ekeghe
Taxaide, a tax management and technology firm, has unveiled technological tools aimed at enhancing tax compliance in the country.
The firm also introduced Data Protection Audit Platform (iDAP) which is expected to help the country comply with international standards on data protection.
Speaking with journalists at a media parley, the Chief Executive Officer Taxaide, Mr. Bidemi Olumide, 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.
He said: “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.
“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.”
According to Olumide, there are an estimated 900 revenue collecting agencies at the federal, state and local government levels 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,” he added.
Taxtech, one of the 27 Data Protection Compliance Organisations (DPCO) appointed by NITDA to assist with ensuring that Personal Data Controllers or Administrators are compliant with the NDPR, in September 2019 started the conversation on a process for the automation of the filing of Data Protection Audit Reports.
He said: “Without automation, it will be almost impossible for Nigeria’s 27 DPCOs to assist the estimated 5 million Data Controllers or Administrators, ensure compliance with the NDPR in 2020.
“Nigeria’s ability to see that more organisations than not are compliant with the NDPR is an unspoken prerequisite for Nigeria to be adjudged a data protection compliant country.
“And that is why we built an electronic Data Protection Audit Platform (iDAP) to ease the data protection audit process for DPCOs. iDAP is an application that allows DPCOs carry out the entire audit process of their clients (Data Controllers and Administrators) seamlessly. “Where NITDA allows, the DPCOs can also automate file the audit reports with NITDA, thereby giving NITDA the opportunity of standardising, assessing and further simplifying the compliance process,” Olumide added.
