By, Onome Jackson
The Federal Government has disclosed that the implementation of the newly signed four tax fiscal reform laws will commence by January 1st, 2026.
Addressing State House correspondents shortly after the President signed the bills into law, Chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Service, Zach Adedeji, said the modalities will be put in place ahead of the implementation.
The bills are the Nigeria Tax Bill (Ease of Doing Business), which aims to consolidate Nigeria鈥檚 fragmented tax laws into a harmonised statute; the Nigeria Tax Administration Bill, which will establish a uniform legal and operational framework for tax administration across federal, state, and local governments.
Others are the Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Bill, which repeals the current Federal Inland Revenue Service Act and creates a more autonomous and performance-driven national revenue agency鈥 the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS); and the Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Bill, which provides for a formal governance structure to facilitate cooperation between revenue authorities at all levels of government.
Adedeji further explained that the six-month period between the enactment of the new fiscal laws is designed to give ample time to those saddled with the implementation to carefully prepare and ensure that all Nigerians are adequately sensitised.
Adedeji mentioned that, households earning N250,000 or less per month are now classified as poor. He said, 鈥淭his tax law will not give you cash in your pocket, but at least it won鈥檛 take your cash away if you are poor. We have eliminated the tax component for people at the bottom, we have reduced for people at the middle, and we have increased slightly for people at the top.
As it stands, 鈥淢ore than 1/3 of workers in both the private and public sectors will now be exempted completely from PAYE.
鈥 They will not have to pay personal income tax. Small businesses, over 90 per cent of small and micro, nano businesses, will no longer have to worry about paying corporate income tax or charging VAT or even deducting withholding tax or paying PAYE for their employees.鈥