BEVERLY HILLS, April 2, (THEWILL) – Nigeria Tuesday unveiled the Voluntary Offshore Assets Regularization Scheme (VOARS) scheme which it hopes will help repatriate funds due to the treasury in taxes from citizen-owners.
The scheme, which is an offshoot of the Executive Order 8 signed last year by President Muhammadu Buhari, aims at providing tax amnesty and permanent waiver of criminal prosecution to owners of offshore assets that are willing to voluntarily declare those assets and pay due taxes on income earned.
Speaking at the unveiling ceremony Tuesday in Abuja, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), said the VOARS was a scheme that was initiated by the Swiss Consortium with a view to facilitating regularization of offshore assets owned by Nigerians.
According to Malami, the scheme provides the legal basis for the Swiss Consortium to approach third party holders of the fund with the view of assessing information of the owners.
The third party, he noted, include banks, estate managers, auditors, and accountants, amongst others, adding that his office is collaborating with the Ministry of Finance, Accountant General of the Federation, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA), Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Debt Management Office (DMO) to develop a roadmap for the implementation of the Executive Order 8, as well as mechanism for taxation on funds to be declared by Nigerians as offshore assets.
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