Content Creators Must Register, Pay Taxes – CAC Declares

The Corporate Affairs Commission has issued a statement urging content creators who are active on social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok and have a significant number of followers to register their businesses with the commission in compliance with the Company and Allied Matters Act 2020.

This call comes in light of alleged plans by the Federal Inland Revenue Services to incorporate media content creators and influencers into their tax system.

Earlier, during a courtesy visit by the Managing Director of Opay, Dauda Gotring, and his team in Abuja, the Registrar General of CAC, Hussaini Magaji, emphasized the importance of this registration.

Opay’s visit aimed to facilitate the regularization of 300,000 agents and merchants with the commission, thereby expanding the tax base, promoting business growth, and generating more employment opportunities for Nigerians.

In a recent collaboration with Moniepoint, a fintech company, the commission initiated the registration process for two million small businesses.

The head of CAC highlighted that social media and content creators are earning substantial amounts of money without contributing any form of tax to the Federal Government.

“Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. It is stated in the Company and Allied Matters 2020 that for any business to take place in Nigeria, whether you are doing business with your name or another name, you must surrender your business for registration.

“If you are a content creator on the internet and you have a large followership and you are gaining or making money from it, you must register and that’s the provision of the law.

“And we are all out to enforce the provision of the law with its penalties,” Magaji said.

He further stated that the commission will initiate compliance inspections in the near future to guarantee that these enterprises commence their tax payments to the government.

According to him, the situation is untenable, as these individuals are obligated to register as businesses due to the substantial earnings they generate from content creation.

Magaji reiterated that the government is fully committed to ensuring that every business in Nigeria, regardless of its nature or operations, is registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).

“The commission is registering another batch of 300,000 business names from Opay,” he said.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) stated that this endeavour is a crucial component of his objective to enroll 20 million businesses by 2024, as well as achieve a target of 50 million job opportunities for Nigerian youths.

Meanwhile, the Managing Director of Opay emphasized that the primary goal of Opay’s operations is to provide banking services to individuals in the country who do not have access to traditional banking services.

“Opay is ready to partner with CAC to ensure these groups of people have their businesses registered, with their consent though,” he said.

Goering said the Opay organization is working to ensure that all companies, no matter how little, as long as you operate as a business, should be registered with the CAC.

He added that since Opay handles “these accounts, they are working on sensitizing the owners of the accounts so they can be registered with CAC.”