The Nigeria Employers’ consultative Association on wednesday appealed to the federal government to stop deducting taxation charges from bank customers within the country.
Timothy Olawale, Director General of NECA, spoke whereas fielding queries from reporters in Lagos.
According to Olawale, the central bank of nigeria and the Nigerian postal service should respect court judgment and stop deducting stamp duty charges from millions of bank customers.
He said: “There is the need to respect valid judgment of the court and stop the systematic deduction from millions of Nigerians who are bank customers in the name of deduction of stamp duties charges.”
The director general aforementioned the imposition of N50 stamp duty charges started once the CBN directed that banks should deduct the sum on all transactions with a value of N1,000 and above in compliance with the Stamp Duties Act.
Olawale aforementioned the problem of stamp duty was tested in courts associated a ruling obtained in an charm against the lower court’s judgment within the case of standard chartered Bank nigeria Ltd vs Kasmal International Services Ltd & 22 Ors in CA/L/437A/2014.
He said Justice ibrahim Saulawa and 4 other Justices of the Court of appeal held that the Stamp Duties Act didn’t impose a duty on all cash deposits in banks.
He aforementioned according to the appeal Court, “electronic transactions” were not covered by the Stamp Duties Act and to the best of its knowledge, there was no challenge of the ruling by any party at the Supreme Court”.
Olawale aforementioned the refusal of the CBN and NIPOST to obey valid judgment of a competent court is worrisome and amount to contempt of court and a sustained daylight robbery of millions of bank customers.
He said: “It could be a mark of disrespect to the Constitution of nigeria, disrespect to the court, and disrespect to due process.
“NECA had written letters in 2015 and 2017 to the CBN Governor, calling his attention to the anomaly and judgment of the court which he neither responded to nor did the needful by halting the fraud and rip off.”
Olawale advised that NIPOST ought to persist with its roles and responsibilities of manufacturing and selling postage stamps.
He called on the CBN to respect the law and judgment of the Court of appeal and instruct industrial banks, through a circular, to prevent the deduction of N50 taxation on customers’ accounts and return many billions of naira illicitly subtracted from them up to now.
