CAC asks content creators to register names, businesses

The Corporate Affairs Commission has asked content creators to register their names or businesses as mandated by the Company and Allied Matters Act 2020.

It noted that attendant penalties will soon be meted out to offenders of the law. The Registrar General, CAC, Hussaini Magaji, said this on Tuesday when the Managing Director, Opay, Dauda Gotring, and his team paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja.

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According to Magaji, ignorance of the law is not an excuse. He declared, “It is stated in the Company and Allied Matters Act, 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.”

The CAC boss also stated these businesses and individuals would be protected when their names are used illegally after registering. He added that the commission has different classes of registration to cater to the specific needs of content creators and others.

This CAC’s call comes a couple of days after news circulated that the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) was planning to tax online content creators.

The FIRS has since dispelled the news. In a BusinessDay report, a staff of the agency, who spoke anonymously, said, “FIRS does not tax personal income tax; state governments do. FIRS collects company income tax. Only those who are corporate names and earn a profit of N25 million and more are required to pay tax.”

The move to register content creators could bring them under the purview of the FIRS.

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While Nigeria remains undecided on a content creation tax, content creators, including skitmakers, digital creators, and TikTokers, will have to pay a 1.5 percent tax on their earnings across social media in Kenya based on the country’s new Finance Act.