Google will charge Nigerians 7.5% VAT starting April 1

Google will now charge Nigerian customers 7.5% VAT on all taxable goods and services starting April 1, next month. On Tuesday morning, the company announced this in an email sent out to its business account holders.

“Due to new legislation in Nigeria, starting April 1, 2022, Google will be required to charge 7.5% VAT on all taxable goods and services. No action is required on your side with regard to your Google business account,” Google said in the email seen by Technext.

The American tech behemoth said the 7.5% VAT is in line with the government’s new law.

In January 2020, the Nigerian government rolled out an increase on VAT to 7.5% from 5% as part of its 2020 Finance Bill. After the government said that it would review the bill in 2019 after “consultations at various levels in the country.”

The Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, said at the time that the bill would be “more beneficial to state governments and Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the country, many of which are already facing difficult conditions.”

This new increase will take effect as the country sees a surge of young Nigerians fleeing the country searching for greener pastures in the West. Just last month, the president, Mohammadu Buhari, at the 6th EU-AFRICA in Brussels, Belgium, called on western leaders to help him curb the rise of young Nigerians leaving the country to theirs.

“Despite burgeoning possibility, irregular northward migration from my continent drains Africa’s talent pool, while provoking political crises in the EU,” Buhari said to world leaders at the event.

This new enforcement of this tax underscores the government being out of step with its direction and its people.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, said the Finance Bill has five strategic objectives.

“These objectives are; Promoting fiscal equity by mitigating instances of regressive taxation; Reforming domestic tax laws to align with global best practices; Introducing tax incentives for investments in infrastructure and capital markets; Supporting Micro, Small and Medium-sized businesses in line with our Ease of Doing Business Reforms; and Raising Revenues for Government.”

Femi Adesina

Google signalled that it will not be saying anything further on the matter advising business account holders to contact their tax advisers.

“Google can’t advise you on tax matters, so please contact your tax adviser for any questions regarding this change,” it said in the mail.

Zoom and Facebook’s parent company META have also implemented the 7.5% VAT on Nigerian customers.

Already, the bill has helped the federal government generate 661.7 billion naira as of the first half of 2020.