BREAKING: Nigerian govt seeks court order for Binance to pay $81bn fine, tax

BREAKING: Nigerian govt seeks court order for Binance to pay $81bn fine, tax

The Nigerian government, through the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), has asked the Federal High Court in Abuja to order Binance Holdings Limited to pay $79,514,055,594.40 and N231 million for economic losses allegedly caused by its operations in Nigeria, as well as $2,001,000,000 in income tax for 2022 and 2023.

These monetary demands and alleged liabilities, include a 10% penalty for non-payment of income tax for 2022 and 2023, a 26.75% interest rate—being the prevailing Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) lending rate per annum—from January 1, 2023, and January 1, 2024, respectively, among other charges.

Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange platform, along with two of its executives, Tigran Gambaryan and Nadeem Anjarwalla, is accused in this lawsuit of contravening Nigerian laws by failing to register with the FIRS for tax compliance and causing economic losses to the country during the period under review.

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The lawsuit alleges that Binance deliberately shrouded its business activities in secrecy despite having a “significant economic presence” in Nigeria.

The violations cited include breaches of Nigeria’s Companies Income Tax (CIT) Act, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (Establishment) Act 2007, the CBN Regulatory Framework for Mobile Money Services, and the CIT Significant Economic Presence (SEP) Order.

The SEP Order, referenced in the lawsuit, sets out conditions under which foreign and non-resident companies providing digital services, among others, become liable for taxation in Nigeria.

The order stipulates that a foreign company has a significant economic presence in Nigeria if it derives an annual gross turnover of at least N25 million or its equivalent in other currencies from digital activities, among other criteria.

The SEP Order was signed by former Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, and gazetted by the federal government in May 2020.

Nairametrics reports that this lawsuit marks the third pending litigation by federal government agencies against Binance’s cryptocurrency activities, which have been widely patronized by Nigerians.

BREAKING: Nigerian govt seeks court order for Binance to pay $81bn fine, tax