The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday approved a bilateral agreement for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of evasion of taxes on income and capital benefits between Nigeria and Singapore.
The Minister Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed; Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun; and Minister of Aviation Hadi Sirika briefed State House correspondents of the outcome of the meeting presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.
President Muhammadu Buhari was attending the 22nd Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change also knownas COP-22, in Marrakech, Morocco at the time of the meeting.
Adeosun said the objective of the agreement was to facilitate more trade between Nigeria and Singapore by ensuring that nationals or enterprises fromeither country are not taxed twice on income or profits derived from each of these countries.
She said, “It (the agreement) will encourage more direct foreign investments into Nigeria, allow investors to know what their tax obligations will be and ensure sustainable tax regime for each country.
“The basis for which we choose to sign this agreement with Singapore ?is that Singapore is a major trading partner with Nigeria.“They buy oil from us. Petroleum export to Singapore for the last five years is about$264bn and we import about N311bn worthof goods from them. It is a major trading partner and we needed to have this bilateral agreement.
“It is basically to ensure that companies are not taxed twice but it also ensures thatcompanies cannot evade tax when trading between the two countries.
”Sirika said the council approved ?Bilateral Air Service Agreement with the State of Qatar and Singapore and Nigeria.
He said Singapore was becoming the mostefficient and the biggest hub around the far Eastern part of the globe, serving New Zealand, Australia, Japan, China, Singaporeand Indonesia among others.
Comments
Post a Comment