BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Bitcoin crashes. Lagos govt to sanction tax defaulters; Other stories

Hello, and welcome to Business Roundup this week. Here, we bring you highlights of events that happened during the week -from the capital market to the mainstream business activities, while not forgetting the tech/economy build up.

Here are the Headlines:

• Nigeria’s Excess Crude Account depleted as govt withdraws $25m in three month
• FAAC disburses N699.8bn to Nigerian govt, states, LGs for Dec
• Bitcoin crash as over 180,000 crypto investors liquidate
• Lagos govt to sanction tax defaulters

Summary:

Nigeria’s Excess Crude Account is almost empty and could just be left empty soon if the Federal government should make one more big withdrawal.

On Friday, the The National Economic Council (NEC) revealed that the Excess Crude Account, which is oil savings now stands at $35,868,086.40 as at 17th January 2022.

The new figure means that from October 2021 when the account was at $60,857,773.43($60.8m) FG dipped its hands into ECA account and withdrew $24.98 million in less than three months.

The Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) has disbursed the sum of N699.82 billion to the three tiers of government for the month of December 2021.

This was announced on Friday in a communique after a virtual meeting of FAAC for January 2022.

The N699.824bn total distributable revenue comprised distributable statutory revenue of N507.267bn; distributable Value Added Tax revenue of N187.4bn and Exchange Gain of N5.148bn.

The Bitcoin market stumbled on Friday, sending shock waves among many investors who lost their investment to the crypto community’s negative reaction to government’s policies across the world.

This recent decline in bitcoin value is experienced by various digital currencies, causing liquidations among various cryptocurrency exchanges, with reports stating that $715 million worth of cryptoassets owned by 185,480 traders liquidated.

Long position crypto holders are exiting the market, resulting to Binance exchange recording liquidation of $173 million, the most among exchanges, while Okez, which trade in Asia saw $170 million liquidated.

The Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) on Tuesday threatened to penalise businesses that failed to file their 2021 tax returns by the end of the month.

In a statement issued by its Public Relations Ofiicer, Adejuwon Osunnuyi, the agency gave companies operating in the state a January 31 deadline to file the tax returns or face sanctions.

Read also: BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Twitter’s Jack Dorsey to mine bitcoin; Nigerian govt reveals borrowing plan for Q1, 2022; Other stories

Section 81 (2) of the Personal Income Tax Act (PITA) Cap P8 LFN 2004 (as amended), requires businesses and employers operating in Lagos State to pay taxes.

On NSE ROUNDUP: Insurance companies flood losers table, as stock market ends trading with N36bn gain

Nigerian bourse handed shareholders N36 billion at the end of its eight hours trading activities on Friday, to improve on the N24.72 trillion market capitalisation reported on Thursday.

This represented a 0.14 percent appreciation in the shareholders’ total investment, which closed at N24.76 trillion today.

Friday’s trading session makes it four days straight gains, with the All Share Index holding on at 45,957.35 ASI.

It surpassed the 45,890.52 points reported on Thursday, after adding to 66.83 basis points to its size.

On the tech scene this week, Pivo, Chari, Bumpa, Moni, Topship, Copia Global and Zanifu were some of the names that made the headlines.

Nigerian fintech startup, Pivo, during the week, closed a new funding round from early-stage venture capital firm, Microtraction.

Also, Nigerian ecommerce startup, Bumpa, highlighted plans towards its vision to build Africa’s version of Shopify.

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