MTN Nigeria Communications Plc reported N295.364 billion in cash tax payments for the first nine months of 2026, a sharp increase that differs from the tax expense recorded against earnings.
The company’s unaudited consolidated cash-flow statement lists “tax paid” of N295.364 billion for the period ended Sept. 30, compared with N21.546 billion in the same period of 2025. The increase of 1,270.9% is calculated from those figures. MTN’s company-only statement lists N295.255 billion in cash tax payments for the 2026 period.
The cash paid is separate from MTN’s N630.471 billion income-tax charge for the nine months, up from N376.256 billion a year earlier. The tax note lists N675.828 billion in current tax and a N45.357 billion deferred-tax credit. The filing does not allocate the cash payments among tax types or directly reconcile them with the income-tax charge.
MTN’s filing says the Nigeria Tax Act 2025 took effect Jan. 1, 2026, and describes a 4% development levy on assessable profits. The company recorded a N93.897 billion provision for the levy for the nine months.
The cash payments were reported alongside higher earnings. Revenue increased 23.6% to N4,613.3 billion and profit before tax rose 59.4% to N1,795.6 billion. Data revenue grew 35.8% to N2,684.4 billion, while active data users rose 12% to 57.2 million by September. Average monthly usage per active data user increased 16.2% to 15.3 gigabytes.
Chief Executive Officer Karl Toriola said, “Growth is increasingly volume-led, driven by more users, deeper data adoption, higher usage and rising demand for home broadband.”
