What a company files in Nigeria [NG]

Every taxable person, with no threshold and no exception by size. Section 4: «Every taxable person shall register with the relevant tax authority and obtain a Taxpayer Identification ('Tax ID') for the purpose of compliance with tax obligations.» The reach is wider than companies: section 5 puts the same duty on «every ministry, department or agency of the Federal or a State government, and every Local Government», and section 6(1) on «a non-resident person that supplies taxable goods or services to any person in Nigeria, or derives income from Nigeria», subject to one carve-out quoted in the Act's own words — «Provided that a non-resident person who derives only passive income from investment in Nigeria may not be required to register for tax but shall provide relevant information as may be prescribed by the Service.» Registration is also not only something the person does: section 7(3) lets the authority register and issue a Tax ID of its own motion to a person who should have applied and did not, and section 7(4) then requires the authority to notify that person. A company that believes it is outside the system because it never applied may already be inside it.

Extensions and exceptions: No period is recorded here because the Act states none. Section 4 imposes the duty without a number of days and without naming the moment from which any period would run; section 7(1) fixes a duty on the authority instead — «The relevant tax authority shall, upon receiving a request, register and issue a Tax ID to every taxable person» — and section 7(2) gives the authority five working days to notify a refusal with reasons. Those five days belong to the authority's answer, not to the person's application, and should not be read as a deadline for registering. What makes the timing matter all the same is the penalty: it is counted by months of failure, so the exposure begins to accumulate from the month in which the person became liable to register, whether or not a date is published anywhere. A newly incorporated company should treat registration as owed at once rather than look for a grace period that the Act does not grant.

No date can be derived here. This deadline runs from something this page does not know — the financial year the company itself elects, or an event only you can date. What is published is the rule, not the day.

Every company, and the Act says so in terms that leave no room for a size exception. Section 11(1): «Every company, including a company granted exemption from incorporation, whether or not it is liable to pay tax under Nigeria Tax Act, 2025 or any other tax law, for a year of assessment, with or without notice from the Service, shall file a self-assessment return with the Service in the prescribed form at least once a year». Three phrases there each remove a common excuse: exemption from incorporation does not remove the duty, absence of liability to tax does not remove it, and no notice from the Service is needed to make it bite. A company taxed at 0% still files: section 56 of the Nigeria Tax Act, 2025 charges a small company «at 0%» and other companies «at the rate of 30% from the commencement of this Act», and a rate of nil is a rate, not an exclusion from filing. What the size of the company does change is the accounting evidence rather than the duty. Section 11(1)(b) requires «the audited financial statements, tax and capital allowances computation for the year of assessment in respect of the profit from each and every source», and allows a small company to put in «a statement of accounts attested to by the taxpayer» instead of audited statements. The naira figures that define a small company are in the interpretation section of the Nigeria Tax Act, 2025 and were not read for this record, so no threshold is stated here; a company anywhere near that line must read the definition itself rather than rely on this note.

Extensions and exceptions: Six months after the end of the accounting year is the rule for a company that has been in business for more than 18 months, and it is the formula recorded above. It is not the whole of section 11(5), and the two other branches are the ones that catch companies out. A newly incorporated company files «within 18 months from the date of its incorporation or not later than six months after the end of its first accounting period, whichever is earlier» — the earlier of two dates, so the eighteen months are a ceiling and not an allowance, and a company whose first accounting period closes early reaches its deadline well before its first anniversary and a half. A company that stops trading files «not later than six months from the date the company permanently ceases to carry on the trade or business in Nigeria», counted from the cessation and not from any year end. The date stays indicative for a further reason that no reading of the Act removes: the accounting year is the company's own, so until its year end is supplied there is no date here to compute. No provision for an extension of the filing date was found in what was read; the Act's own wording is «Subject to this Act, any tax law or regulation», which leaves room for a regulation this record has not seen.

No date can be derived here. This deadline runs from something this page does not know — the financial year the company itself elects, or an event only you can date. What is published is the rule, not the day.

A taxable person. Section 22(1) puts the duty on «a taxable person», and the phrase that matters most in it is the one that removes the commonest assumption: the return is due «whether or not an economic activity has taken place». A month with no sales is a month with a return, and so is a month with no activity at all. Section 22(4) carves out one class in a single sentence — «The provision of subsection (1) of this section shall not apply to a small business.» — and that sentence is the reason this record carries no threshold figure. What counts as a small business is defined in the Nigeria Tax Act, 2025, whose interpretation section was not read here, so the naira amount is deliberately absent rather than estimated. The practical reading is narrow and should stay narrow: the exclusion is from the monthly return under subsection (1), and nothing read here extends it to the obligation to register for tax, which section 4 imposes on every taxable person without a size test. A business that is small enough to escape the monthly return is not thereby outside the tax system, and a business near the line must read the definition itself.

Extensions and exceptions: The Act words it as a day of the month rather than as a period: the return goes in «on or before the 21st day of the following month». For a monthly period that is the same thing as the 21 days recorded above, counted from the end of the month being reported, and the day of the month is the form to rely on. The date stays indicative here for one reason only, and it is not uncertainty about the 21st: the cycle is monthly, so there are twelve of these a year and the one that applies depends on which month a user is asking about, which this record cannot know. No extension of the filing date was found in what was read, and the Act gives no relief for a month in which nothing happened — subsection (1) requires the return «whether or not an economic activity has taken place», so a nil return is still a return. Whether the 21st moving onto a weekend or a public holiday shifts the date is not stated in the words read here.

No date can be derived here. This deadline runs from something this page does not know — the financial year the company itself elects, or an event only you can date. What is published is the rule, not the day.

Every employer, with no threshold on the number of employees and no exception by size or legal form. Section 14(1): «An employer shall file a return with the relevant tax authority for all emoluments paid to its employees, not later than 31 January of each year in respect of all employees in its employment in the preceding year.» Two features of that sentence set the boundary. It covers «all emoluments», which the Act's own content requirement spells out as gross emoluments including allowances and benefits, so pay in kind is inside the return; and it covers «all employees in its employment in the preceding year», which includes anyone who left during the year. A company with one employee owes this return as much as a company with a thousand, and a company whose only employee is a working director has an employer's obligation whether or not it thinks of itself as an employer. This return is separate from, and does not replace, an employee's own annual income return, which the Act deals with in section 13.

Extensions and exceptions: This is the one date in this record that is a calendar date and not a formula. The Act writes it out — «not later than 31 January of each year in respect of all employees in its employment in the preceding year» — so it does not move with the company's accounting year, and a company that has set its accounts to a date other than December still files this return in January. No provision for an extension was found in what was read, and the Act does not say whether the date shifts when 31 January falls on a weekend or a public holiday.