COVID-19: THE BIRTH OF THE EMERGENCY ECONOMIC STIMULUS BILL 2020
March 27, 2020
March 27, 2020
March 25, 2020
January 14, 2020
President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR has signed into law the Finance Act 2020 (“the Act”). It would be recalled that the draft law was submitted to the National Assembly on 8th October 2019 for consideration, alongside the budget for 2020 fiscal year…
November 15, 2019
It would be recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR presented the budget estimates for 2020 to the joint session of the National Assembly on October 8 2019. The budget proposal includes a total expenditure of over N10 trillion to be funded with revenues of N8.1 trillion, with non-oil tax revenue contributing about 22% of the total revenue.
November 7, 2019
The Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contract Act 2004, (Amendment) Bill was signed on the 4th of November, 2019 by the President. Since its primary enactment, the act aimed at giving certain fiscal incentives to the oil and gas companies operating in the Deep Offshore and Inland Basin areas under production sharing contracts between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (the ‘Corporation’) and other companies holding oil prospecting licenses or oil mining leases and various petroleum exploration and production companies.
October 7, 2019
In Nigeria, auditors are required to lend credibility to the annual accounts through independent examination of the books and records of the company. The audit function is part of the mechanism for enhancing confidence in corporate annual reports. Prior to 1990, there was no direct regulation of the market for auditing services in Nigeria and no professional code and standard of auditing practice.
September 24, 2019
SMEs account for between 50% and 60% of value creation in any economy according to the OECD, this can be linked to the impact of the combination of digitalization and globalization which has acted as major channels to enhancing the performance of SMEs.
Digitalization has opened new opportunities for SMEs to innovate and flourish, as they acquire capacity to use and combine emerging digital technologies to transform their business models and work practices. The potential implications for their overall productivity and inclusive growth abound in the marketplace.
Over the years, SMEs have leveraged on digitization to create effective mechanisms to reduce size disadvantages in both local and international trade, for example by reducing the absolute costs associated with office space, transport, high staff cost and border operations.
However, recent economic slowdown and reduction in foreign direct investment will hit SMEs most. These challenges call for innovative and multi-level policy solutions for SMEs by the government that will enable SMEs and entrepreneurs reach their full potential and to build a more resilient, sustainable and inclusive society.
There are a range of views on how to unleash and preserve SMEs and Entrepreneurs’ potentials in developing countries, some of which are:
Enhancing access to diverse financing instruments: Governments should improve their regulatory frameworks and introduce targeted policies to support FinTechs, such as equity crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending. The government should also awaken the venture capital industry, mainly through public funds and co-investing with private actors.
Infrastructure development: Emphasis should be placed on digital networks, large-scale research and computing infrastructure platforms for technology transfer that contribute to make SMEs’ business environment more innovation oriented.
Smart regulation and simplified business processes: The government should embark on reforms in taxation aiming to lower administrative requirements and delays which will reduce the burden on SMEs and start-ups.
Building a supportive environment for SMEs’ capacity: Scaling up the network between Multi-National enterprises (MNEs) and SMEs beyond financial packages to simplified procedures aiming to attract foreign direct investment into the country.
Improving strong and diverse skills set: The government should create an avenue to consolidate vocational education and training systems while encouraging higher participation. Many SMEs use apprenticeships for cost efficiency, and more than 50% of apprentices work in firms with less than 50 employees.
Finally, developing countries or emerging markets to which Nigeria can be classified are categorized by population, market share and purchasing power parity amongst others. These parameters for the Nigerian market have the potential to attract foreign direct investment if the business climate is conducive in terms of ease of doing business, policy stability, return on investment with regards returns on capital importation, and security. These form some of the significant areas where the government should be seen to focus, and the expectation is that several of the other important parameters (such as infrastructural development) will start to align with the ultimate objective of nation building by attracting its own investments.
September 19, 2019
The Federal Inland Revenue Service (“FIRS” or “the Service”) recently issued the Income Tax (Common Reporting Standard) Regulations, 2019 (“The Regulations”) in accordance with the provisions of the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters and the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information (AEOI), signed by the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2017; Common Reporting Standard (“CRS”) and its Commentaries (“CRS Commentaries).
September 16, 2019
The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday, 11th September 2019, approved that the Value Added Tax (VAT) rate be increased from the current rate of 5% to 7.2%. This proposed increase was announced by the Honorable Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning…
September 12, 2019
The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria recently signed into law the new Nigeria Police Trust Fund (Establishment) Act, 2019 (“the Act”). This Act establishes the Nigeria Police Trust Fund (“the Fund”) in favour of the Nigerian Police Force (“the Police”). The main objective of the Act is to provide a legal framework to govern the Fund to be utilized for training the Police, providing state-of-the-art security equipment and other related facilities to aid in the enhancement of the discharge of the dues of the Police.