Delta Revenue Board Seals Up 3 Companies Over N42m Tax Deductions

DBIR

Three companies in Udu and Uvwie Local Government Areas of Delta State have been sealed up by the State Board of Internal Revenue, DBIR, for alleged non-remittance of N42 million tax deductions to the State Government.

The companies are Shore Gas Limited, Lateejay Oil and Gas Limited and a three-star hotel, Mega Hilton Hotel in Effurun, which was shut down for the same offence in 2011.

Shore Gas Limited is reportedly indebted to the tune of N2.4 million, Lateejay Oil and Gas Limited, N27,510,000 and Mega Hilton Hotel, N11.4million.

DBIR officials who went for the assignment with a team of fully armed mobile policemen and representatives from High Court, Warri, confiscated some movable properties which were taken to court, after sealing up the premises of the affected companies.

Legal Officer to the Chairman of DBIR, Mr. Clark Ekpebe, said, told newsmen at the end of the exercise that, “Sometime in September 2013, the Delta State Board of Internal Revenue, under the Executive Chairman, Hon. Joel-Onowakpo Thomas, held a stakeholders’ meeting with tax payers in the state, where he appealed to them to settle their liabilities with the Board on or before 25th of September 2013, as the Board will take all legal steps to recover the monies owed the State Government.”

According to him, a situation where the state government is owed several billions of naira was worrisome and incompatible with the present administration’s vision of Delta Beyond Oil, anchored mostly on internally generated revenue, which the Board has a duty to enforce.

“Consequently, having exhausted every means for defaulters to see reason and settle their outstanding liabilities to no avail, the Board is now embarking on enforcement exercise against defaulters with duly secured court orders to seal up and distrain upon their goods and chattels in settlement of the liabilities,” he said.

He therefore advised companies yet to pay up their liabilities to go to tax collecting banks to pay, Clark saying, “We want to assure the tax-paying public that as much as the Board will not take undue advantage of any tax payer so shall it not collect a kobo less of what is due to the state government. This exercise is total against defaulters and there are no sacred cows as the law will take its course on all of them.”