TAX IS LEVIED WHERE THE PERSON RESIDES

RESPONDENT FAILED TO ESTABLISHED EARNED TAXABLE INCOME

The power of the Board is not to be exercised by determining a company’s assessable profits according to its BOJ but rather to determine total profit to which the applicable tax rate is applied. The Respondent failed to establish that the Appellant indeed earned taxable income or turnover for the relevant periods or establish the nature and value of the taxable services rendered by the Appellant during the period in question i.e., 2010 to 2017.

— I.E. Ekwo, J. Daudu v FIRS (2023) – FHC/ABJ/TA/1/2021

SERVING NOTICE OF TAX ASSESSMENT ON THE TAX PAYER MUST BE DONE

In this regard, the case of Fasogbon v. Layande (1999) 11 NWLR (Pt. 6280) 543 becomes very apt, wherein it was held at pages 556 557 that: “From the steps that must be taken before the tax payable is evolved, to argue that serving notice of assessment on the tax payer is not part of the procedure under the decree is unthinkable. It is like a Romeo without a Juliet. In the realm of the law, to say that the tax payer who by operation of personal income tax is legally indebted to the tax authority for the assessed income tax is not informed of the assessment of the income tax payable would be an imposition, an arbitrary act that affects his civil rights and therefore infringes upon his civil rights and of fair hearing under Section 36 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”