Tourism minister's hotel sealed over tax evasion

Officials of theFederal InlandRevenue Service (FIRS), on Wednesday, in Calabar, Cross River State, sealed off the La Mirage Hotel owned by the Minister of Culture, Tourism and National Orientation, Chief Edem Duke, for non-remittance of hotel taxes.The tax officials later reopened the hotel an hour later, after obtaining a payment of one million naira in cheque.The FIRS officials said their action followed records of tax defaults by the hotel, just as they promised to revisit the facility soon to collect the balance, which they claimed runs into millions of naira.According to the Head of Payment and Processing Department at the Calabar office of FIRS, Mr Solomon Ajimotokin, the La Mirage Hotel had defaulted in remittance on the Value Added Tax (VAT) for a period of two years from 2010 as well as default in payment on the income tax for a period of three years from 2009.On whether the tax officials deliberately targeted the Christmas period knowing fully well that this was the only season hoteliers enjoyed any form of boom, Ajimotokin said the move was just a coincidence as his office had suffused the various hospitality establishments operating in the state with notices to regularise their documents with the office with no positive response.
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