FIRS extends the filing deadline for income tax returns by one month

The Federal Inland Revenue Service has extended by one month the deadline for filing income tax returns of companies whose returns were due on June 30, 2021. The new due date of filing such income tax returns has thus been pushed to July 31, 2021.
This, it stated in a public notice, applied to tax returns prepared based on financial statements for the year or period ended December 31, 2020.
The FIRS also suspended the late returns filing penalty and interest for late payment that should have accrued, provided the returns were filed on the new TaxPro-Max platform within the extended deadline.
The service said it had extended the deadline for validating and uploading withholding tax (WHT) credit notes on TaxPro-Max from June 30, 2021 to July 31.
The public notice also communicated improvements made to the TaxPro-Max platform such as activation of payment on account option pending an assessment; extension of the validity of payment reference number (PRN) generated on TaxPro-Max till midnight of the due date of the returns (this was previously midnight of the date PRN is generated); and enablement of branch tax identification number for making value added tax and withholding tax payments.
The FIRS had issued a public notice communicating that with effect from June 7, 2021, all naira-denominated tax returns are to be filed strictly on TaxPro-Max.
It also had notified taxpayers of a deadline of June 30, 2021 for validating and uploading WHT credit notes.
According to the FIRS, the extension of these deadlines is due to the teething challenges faced by taxpayers in filing their tax returns and validating their WHT credit notes for uploading by the FIRS’ officials on TaxPro-Max.