The Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed has cleared the air about bank accounts being closed as a result of Tax Identification Number(TIN).

The Finance Bill 2019 which was recently passed required that banks demand Tax Identification Number (TIN) from Nigerians before activating their accounts. The minister has however stated that this would not happen anytime soon.

The Minister of Finance gave this assurance during the briefings on the breakdown of the just concluded Appropriation Act 2020 in Abuja.

She said the decision was made so that government can consult with stakeholders like banks and other agencies on the issue so that the Tin implementation would not affect Nigerians and would be carried out in the best possible way.

In the minister of Finance words, she said;

“We are confident that this week, Mr. President will receive the Finance Bill from the National Assembly and he will normally ask various ministries should review and advice him before he finally assents to it. Our target is that we start the work from January 2020. I am not saying that every provision in the Finance Bill will take effect from January 2020 because I have seen it newspapers that people are saying that from January 2020 without TIN you will not be able to operate your bank accounts.”

“It doesn’t work like that. We will still have to engage the commercial banks, the FIRS will have to engage the commercial banks and work out a modality on how this provision will be implemented and normally, there will be information that will be given to the citizens on how they can get their TIN which, by the way, is a simple visit to the FIRS website where you register and you get your TIN and there will be some time given for that process to be activated before any imposition or the stoppage of the use of bank accounts is taken.” Ahmed added.