The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has urged the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) to grant a one-month extension for the filing of Company Income Tax (CIT) returns following widespread technical glitches on the newly introduced Rev360 tax platform.
LCCI Director-General, Dr Chinyere Almona, made the appeal in a statement issued on Wednesday in Lagos.
She also called on the NRS to waive penalties for companies that were unable to file their returns before Tuesday’s statutory deadline due to the failure of the tax portal.
Almona explained that prolonged downtime on the Rev360 platform on the deadline day prevented thousands of companies from completing their tax filings.
While acknowledging that some businesses delayed filing until the last minute, she stressed that the widespread system failure was beyond the control of taxpayers.
“Rev360 inaugurated about two months ago, suffered prolonged downtime on Tuesday, leaving thousands of companies unable to file with only hours to spare.
“This is a platform failure, not a taxpayer failure,” she said.
The LCCI Director-General noted that although teething challenges were expected with a newly deployed digital platform, launching it close to a major statutory deadline exposed businesses to avoidable risks.
According to her, the high volume of last-minute users exposed weaknesses in the platform’s capacity, resulting in login failures, validation errors and unsuccessful submissions when taxpayers required reliable access.
She therefore urged the NRS to immediately extend the CIT filing deadline by one month and waive all penalties for companies that attempted to file on or before the deadline but were unable to do so because of the system outage.
Almona also called on the revenue agency to urgently improve the platform’s capacity and reliability ahead of future filing deadlines.
“The LCCI appeals to the NRS to announce the extension and penalty waiver as soon as possible to avoid apprehension and confusion within the business community,” she said.
She added that granting an extension had become necessary to ensure the smooth implementation of the new tax administration system.
According to her, adopting a cautious regulatory approach during the rollout of the new platform would help build confidence among taxpayers while encouraging compliance.
