The Federal Government will arraign Binance Holdings Limited and its two top officials, Tigran Gambaryan and Nadeem Anjarwalla, on April 4th over allegations bordering on tax evasion.
The cryptocurrency platform and two of its top officials, who are listed as 1st to 3rd defendants respectively, are to be arraigned before Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court (FHC), Abuja, on a four-count charge.
While the fleeing Anjarwalla is Binance’s Africa regional manager, Gambaryan is a US citizen overseeing financial crime compliance at the crypto exchange platform.
News About Nigeria gathered that, although the Federal High Court’s Easter vacation began on March 22 and will end on April 8, the Chief Judge of FHC, Justice John Tsoho, directed the transfer of the Binance case file to Justice Nwite.
This, according to him, is because the matter concerns dire national interest and should be settled as soon as possible.
It was also gathered that hearing notices are related to the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the prosecuting agency, and counsel to other parties for the defendants to take their plea.
In the charge marked: FHC/ABJ/CR/115/2024 dated and filed March 22 by the FIRS’ team of lawyers, led by Moses Ideho, the defendants were alleged to have committed the offence on or about Feb. 1, 2024.
The charges against Binance read, “Count one alleged that while involved in carrying and offering services to subscribers on their platform, known as Binance, failed to register with the FIRS, for the purpose of paying all relevant taxes administered by the service. Count two alleged that while they were offering taxable services to subscribers on their trading platform known as Binance, they failed to issue invoices to those subscribers for the purposes of determining and payment of their value-added taxes (VATs).
“Count three accused them of offering services to subscribers on their trading platform in the buying and selling of cryptocurrencies and in the remittance and transfer of those assets, and that having offered those services, they were obliged to deduct VATs and did fail to deduct necessary VATs arising from their operations. In count four, the defendants were alleged to have, while involved in the offering of services to subscribers on their trading platform, aid and abet those subscribers to unlawfully refuse to pay taxes, or neglect to pay those taxes.”
It also added that the offences are punishable under Sections 8 and 29 of the VAT Act of 1993 (as Amended), Section 40 of the FIRS Establishment Act, 2007 (as amended), and under provisions of Section 94 of the Companies Income Tax Act (as amended) respectively.
