Lagos are not joking with tax, Nollywood
actress Monalisa Chinda Coker may have gotten herself into trouble with the law
concerning payment of tax. According to reports reaching Legit.ng, a Lagos high
court in Igbosere has issued a warrant for the arrest of the actress and
producer.
The order which was made on January 21, by Justice Adedayo Akintoye,
came after an application by the Lagos state ministry of justice to the court
on allegations that Coker had repeatedly failed to honour court summons. The
application flowed from a two-count charge accusing Coker of a six-year failure
to file annual tax returns and failure to pay income tax in respect of her
company, Monalisa Code Productions, which carries out its business from Lekki
in Lagos state.
According to the
prosecution counsel, Y. A. Pitan, Coker had not appeared in court since 2017
when the charge was filed against her. “The defendant has been served with
hearing notice. The proof of service is in the court’s file,” Pitan told
Justice Akintoye while making an application for the bench warrant.
Count one of the charge,
marked LD/5712c/2017, reads in part: “Failure to furnish and file annual tax
returns for the purpose of personal income taxation with the Lagos State
Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) contrary to Section 94(1) of the Personal
Income Tax Act 2004 (as amended).” The particulars of the count stated that
Coker “of Monalisa Code Productions, being a taxable person in Nigeria and
carrying on business at… Lekki… failed to furnish and file tax returns on your
personal income for the years 2011 to 2016.”
Count two reads: “Failure
to pay income tax contrary to Section 56 of the Lagos State Revenue
Administration Law of 2006.
According to court reports,
the case has been adjourned till April 1, while maintaining that the warrant
should continue. Monalisa Chinda Coker would not be the first person to get
into trouble with the law over payment issues. Recall a while back, reports
from a court documents obtained, revealed that dancehall singer Cynthia Morgan
was charged to the Ikeja high court for failure to pay her rent at her Omole
apartment. Sadly, it was learnt that on the same day the artiste was served
court papers for defaulting on payment of rent, she was also served with court
papers for evading tax.
No comments:
Post a Comment