Rivers State Government have asked hotels and restaurants to begin remittance of the agreed 4% customer charge.
This was contained in a report after the Executive Chairman of the Rivers State Internal Revenue Service, Adoage Norteh, held a meeting with the state chapter of the Nigerian Hotels Association in Port Harcourt.
The RIRS boss, charged the hotel owners to cooperate with the state government in its effort to collect the tax from consumers.
It will be recalled that in 2016, the Rivers State Assembly passed into law, an executive bill that sought to indirectly tax hotel and restaurant customers a certain percentage of the total cost of their purchases.
The law – Rivers State Hotel Occupancy and Restaurants Consumption Law of 2018 mandates the management of hotels and restaurants to charge and remit 4% of the total cost of a purchase by consumers.
One of the issues discussed at the meeting, was the period when the government expects the hotels to begin remittance. The law was signed by the Governor in July 2016, and the revenue agency says it expected remittance from the hotels and restaurants to have started in the same year.
However, businesses are requesting for an additional period of grace of more than one year. The association wants the agency to start the remittance period from 2018, but in his response, Mr. Norteh told the hotels managements that he is in no position to extend the period, but will forward their request to the Governor to set the remittance period from 2017.
The Rivers State Board of internal revenue has been tasked with financing about 26% (N132bn)of the state’s N510bn 2018 Budget, an optimistic target which the agency’s chairman says he is confident it can realize.
Touch PH.
