The Corporate Affairs Commission has invited social media content makers, Instagram users, and TikTok users with a big following to register their businesses with the commission under the Company and Allied Matters Act 2020.
This comes amid claimed attempts by the Federal Inland Revenue Service to include media material and influencers into its tax system.
Hussaini Magaji, Registrar General of the CAC, made the call on Tuesday while receiving a courtesy visit from Opay’s Managing Director, Dauda Gotring, and his team in Abuja.
The Opay team’s visit was to confirm that 300,000 agents and merchants were in compliance with the commission.
This will broaden the tax base, boost business, and provide more jobs for Nigerians.
Last week, the commission began registering two million small enterprises in collaboration with Moniepoint, a financial company.
The CAC’s CEO noted that social media and content creators make a lot of money without paying any taxes to the federal government.
Magaji said,
“Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. It is stated in the Company and Allied Matters 2020 that for any business to take place in Nigeria, whether you are doing business with your name or another name, you must surrender your business for registration.
” If you are a content creator on the internet and you have a large followership and you are gaining or making money from it, you must register and that’s the provision of the law.
“And we are all out to enforce the provision of the law with its penalties.”
He added that the commission will soon begin compliance checks to ensure these businesses start paying their taxes to the government.
He added,
“This cannot go on, these groups of people are under mandate to register as a business considering the amount they make from the content creation. The government is all out to ensure every business in Nigeria, no matter what or how, is registered with the CAC.
“The commission is registering another batch of 300,000 business names from Opay.”
The CAC boss said the initiative is part of his target to register 20 million businesses in 2024 and 50 million jobs target for Nigerian youths.
On his part, the Opay MD noted that the idea behind Opay operations is to deliver banking services to the unbanked persons in the country.
“Opay is ready to partner with CAC to ensure these groups of people have their businesses registered, with their consent though,” he said.
Gotring said the Opay organisation is working to ensure that all companies no matter how little, as long as you operate as a business you should be registered with the CAC.
He added that since Opay handles, “these accounts they are working on sensitising the owners of the accounts so they can be registered with CAC.”