Following peddling of different dates for the commencement of the Act, Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, announced that the implementation of the Value Added Tax (VAT) provisions of the Act will take off on February, 1, 2020.
S.2(1) of the Interpretation Act (IA), titled “Passing and commencement”, states that an Act is passed when the President assents to the Bill whether or not the Act then comes into force.
S.2(2) of the IA says where there is no provision as to the time when a particular enactment is to come into force, it shall come into force on the day when the Act is passed.
According to Taiwo Oyedele of PriceWaterhouseCoopers the “Acts Authentication Act LFN 2004” (AAA) S.3(2) requires a duplicate when passed and signed shall be returned to the Clerk of the National Assembly who shall publish in the Federal Gazette; and the production of a copy of the Federal Gazette containing the Schedule as published shall be conclusive evidence for all purposes.”
What this means, according to Oyedele, is: “The Finance Act 2019 came into force on Monday 13th January 2020. Since the Gazetted copy was only made public, the Act is technically retroactive.”
In the Gazetted copy of the Act, it was stated: “A taxable person who fails to submit returns to the Service is liable to a fine of ₦50,000 in the month of default and ₦25,000 for every month in which the default continues.”
To acquire the gazette the federal government now demands that “annual subscription from the 1st January 2020 is Local: ₦45,000, Overseas: ₦60,500 (surface mail); ₦75,000 (Second Class Air Mail). The present issue will go for ₦2,000 per copy. Subscribers who wish to obtain Gazette after 1st January should apply to the federal government printer Lagos for amended subscriptions.
