Wow! The Financial Reporting Council (FRC) said it
had designed an accounting system for churches, mosques and other
not-for-profit organisations, adding that it will compel them to report their
financial transactions periodically from January 2013.
Executive Secretary/Chief Executive Officer,
FRC, Mr. Jim Osayande Obazee, who said this in a keynote address presented at
the 2012 annual conference of the Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria
(FICAN) held in Ijebu-Ode at the weekend, explained that the move was to ensure
that more Nigerians are dragged into the corporate tax net.
This, according to the FRC boss, is also in
line with the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).
Obazee said: “We want to release our
Statement of Accounting Standards (SAS) 32 because we want churches and
charities to begin to present accounts. They just file returns to the Corporate
Affairs Commission (CAC) and so long as they pay the N1000, they are home and
dry. But we are saying that they must report their financial transactions in
proper format.
“Also, once charity organisations engage in
non-charity activities, they would have to submit those goods for taxable
purposes. A country is not run by oil, but by tax. Go to the internet and you
see all the branches of the Redeemed Christian Church in United Kingdom, you
will see their accounts and over there, they fully disclose the amount
collected as a church. But in our own, people are asking me: “Jim, do you want
God to render account.”
Gbam! What do you guys think?!