States governments have instituted a legal action against the Federal Government over its continued collection of stamp duties in the country.
The states in the suit filed at the apex court is claiming specifically that the right to collect stamp duties on financial transactions between persons or individuals in a state is the exclusive reserves of the states, hence the apex court should intervene and restrain the federal government from further collection of the monies.
21st CENTURY CHRONICLE reports that the state governments had some months ago dragged the FG to court over its failure to remit to the federation accounts, trillions of naira received from recovered assets.
Lagos State has also commenced move to stop the collection of VAT by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) in the state, a week after Rivers State secured a court victory over the federal government in the collection of Value Added Tax (VAT) in the state.
In the current legal action, dated August 19, 2021 and filed on 24, the 36 states in an 18-paragraph affidavit deposed to by one Chijioke Chuku, Director Legal Services of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF), claimed that FG’s collection of stamp duties and retention of same in financial transactions between individuals was contrary to the provisions of the law.
Plaintiffs in the suit marked SC/CV/690/2021, claimed that between 2015 to 2020, the federal government had collected and retained a total sum of N 176,067,400,000,00 from stamp duties on individual persons’ transactions within their respective states.
The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, was the sole defendant in the suit filed by Yusuf Alli (SAN) on behalf of the plaintiffs.
