The Federal Government through Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission directed the Central Bank of Nigeria to immediately suspend the N50 Stamp duty charge on Point of Sales machine.
The statement signed by Mr Babatunde Irukera reads;
“The FCCPC’s strongly held position was that an assessment imposed on merchants necessarily is a component of their cost of doing business, and may only be directly passed on to consumers in limited circumstances.
“For many reasons, including and particularly the CBN’s effort to promote a cashless economy, the merchants’ response of imposing this assessment on consumers was not only inconsistent with the underlying policy but also counterproductive and burdensome on consumers”.
The FCCPC then stated that: “Merchants are now prohibited from penalising or otherwise, assessing any duty, costs or assessment characterised as ‘stamp duty’ on consumers who select point of sale options to conclude their purchase or transactions.”
It would be recalled that the CBN on Monday, December 23, cautioned merchants against charging customers N50 for the use of POS machines.
The apex bank said its directive on stamp duty payments were misunderstood by merchants who are already billing customers N50 for every POS transaction.
Addressing the issue, Musa Jimoh, the CBN’s director of the payment system management department said stamp duty is a fee regulated by an Act.
