Stamp Duty Charge: Retail outlets risk CBN sanction

Some retail outlets in the country risk being sanctioned by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for disregarding its directives that the N50 Point of Sale (PoS) Stamp Duty fee should be collected from businesses and not customers.

The retail outlets in the e-payment value chain such as filling stations and supermarkets, which are supposed to be paying the Stamp Duty fee themselves as it is a merchant charge, not a customer charge, have continued to collect the illegal fee from customers.

In order to avoid dispute between customers, what some do is to add it directly to the customer’s purchases while others just put up a notice of the payment for customers to see before purchasing anything.

Speaking on the trend, the President of the Bank Customers Association of Nigeria, Uju Ogubunka, said that the actions being carried out by the businesses in spite of the CBN’s directive were condemnable and that it should stop.

He called on the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to ensure compliance with the directive by marketers while also urging the CBN to ensure full compliance’s across retail shops.

“I expect the CBN to move beyond its directive that bank customers reject the fee and fight for customers. Another option is for the customers to carry cash and avoid the fee where the risks are minimal.” Ogubunka said.

On the other hand, the CBN Director, Payment System Management Department, Musa Jimoh, according to The Nation, advised customers to reject the N50 PoS fee. He emphasized the fact that the stamp duty which is a fee regulated by an Act has been misinterpreted by many.

“Our circular that talks about merchants paying stamp duty according to the law does not say that the stamp duty should be paid by the consumer. That’s actually a misrepresentation of the CBN’s directive.

Data obtained from the Nigerian Inter-Bank Settlement Scheme disclosed that depositors across banks did transactions worth N97.32 trillion over the instant payment and Point of Sales (PoS) in the last 11 months.

While a total of N94.49 trillion worth transaction were conducted via the instant payment platform, another N2.83 trillion were carried out by banks’ depositors on the PoS platform within the same period under review.