A recently-released statement by Mr. Johannes Oluwatobi Wojuola, Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), has made it known that the FIRS has begun deduction of taxes from online gaming platforms directly at transaction points. The FIRS issued a public notice about this development and asked that the online gaming community be compliant to it.
According to the FIRS, this deduction of taxes directly would be done through the Sentinel National Payment Gateway and Electronic Solution. “Sentinel National Payment Gateway is a transaction processing system that enables Integrated Payment Service Providers to deduct taxes at transaction-points and remit the tax deducted directly to government’s treasury”, FIRS stated. It also added that the deployment of this payment system aims at simplifying tax compliance for companies engaged in online gaming activities.
The statement by Mr. Wojuola further stated that FIRS directed that, no later than 31st December 2022, all online gaming operators are expected to connect to the Sentinel platform, deduct taxes from online gaming transactions, and remit them directly to the relevant government’s treasury. Also, online gaming operators outside Nigeria were not mandated to be incorporated in Nigeria, but were compelled by virtue of Nigeria’s tax laws to connect to the Sentinel platform to deduct taxes from gaming transactions of players in Nigeria, and remit them to the government.
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