By law, every profit making company or institution is mandated to make tax remittances to the government. Over the years, these remittances have been made through the Federal Revenue Inland Services (FIRS) to the Federal Government of Nigeria.
This compulsory levy is necessary to provide funds for the government to execute its key capital projects without necessarily resorting to borrowing. With Nigeria’s rising debt to GDP ratio, it is imperative to engender policies that would stimulate greater tax compliance and judicious use of the proceeds for the welfare of the citizenry.
Remarkably, findings by naijabusiness.com.ng revealed that about ten elite companies in Nigeria listed on the website of the NGX, paid out a total of about N351.4 billion as tax for the year ended December 31, 2021.
The breakdown of the amount paid revealed that Dangote Cement Plc paid the highest amount by any Nigerian company for the period. It paid a total of N97.24 billion as tax to the Federal Government. This is not surprising given the capacity of the company and its recent financial records. As at the period of filing this report, Dangote Cement Plc is the most capitalized Nigerian company with a market capitalization of about N4.17 trillion.
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Next on the line was MTN Nigeria which paid a total of N93.66 billion as tax to the government for the aforementioned period. Interestingly, MTN Nigeria is also the second most capitalized company in Nigeria with a market capitalization of N3.46 billion as at 31st of December, 2020.
The amount paid as tax by these two elite companies were followed by Guaranty Trust Holding Company (GTCo) with N36.66 billion, Zenith Bank with N25.29 billion, Nestle Nigeria with N21.43 billion, Access Bank with N19.11 billion, UBA with N18.1 billion, Dangote Sugar with N15.85 billion, International Breweries with N12.51 billion and Stanbic IBTC Holding with N11.51 billion.
It is pertinent to state that these figures were extracted from the financial statements of the aforementioned institutions which is currently been tracked by our analysts. youtube views
