The Freeze Mandate

The Federal Inland Revenue Service ("FIRS") has recently appointed a number of banks as collecting agents authorizing them to freeze taxpayers' accounts for an alleged tax default ("Freeze Mandate").

This Freeze Mandate purports to derive from the power of substitution given to FIRS to appoint any person as a collecting agent to pay taxes payable to the FIRS by the taxable person from monies in the custody of the collecting agents1. Expectedly, there has been an uproar about this Freeze Mandate and whether or not it is an infringement on the right to fair hearing of the affected taxpayer and whether the alleged tax payable is final and conclusive and if the collecting agent can withhold the taxable person's funds. This is a grey area.