By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The Federal University of Agriculture in Makurdi, Benue State, has been sealed off by the Benue State Internal Revenue Service (BIRS).
The higher institution of learning was shut by the Benue State tax office over non-remittance of Personal Income Tax running into N2.3 billion.
The action, we gathered, followed reported failure of the school to respond to several letters written to it by the tax office to pay up the outstanding Personal Income Tax from 2007 to 2011.
Chairman of BIRS, Mrs Mimi Adzape-Orubibi, who led the enforcement team to seal off the university, noted that her agency received an interim order to restrain FUAM because it failed to deduct PAYE tax in some cases or deducted less in other cases.
According to her, the school would now have to pay almost N3 billion inclusive of penalties and interest.”
Meanwhile, the university’s chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has described the move as an attempt to commence another round of illegal deductions from salaries of its members.