The ethical face of the ‘renewed’ tax laws

No topical issue within Nigeria’s media space attracted comments, observations, remarks, acclaims, and criticisms in the past few weeks as much as the new (or better said, ‘renewed’) tax laws did. Debates on the matter had been on for several months, but it turned controversial when a member of the country’s House of Representatives, Abdussamad Dasuki (PDP, from Sokoto state), raised a matter of privilege; alleging that discrepancies exist between the tax laws passed by the National Assembly and the versions gazetted and made available to the public.

The four Acts that jointly make up the Nigeria’s tax reform framework (due to have taken off about 48 hours ago on Thursday January 1, 2026) are the National Revenue Service (Establishment) Act; the Joint Revenue Board of Nigeria (Establishment) Act; the Nigeria Tax Administration Act; and the Nigeria Tax Act. While the Acts were passed by both chambers of the National Assembly in March 2025, Votes and Proceedings were produced in May 2025; and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu assented to them in June 2025. The laws were, thereafter, gazetted on June 26, 2025.

Dasuki said he obtained copies of the gazetted laws from the Ministry of Information and found them inconsistent with what was approved by both chambers. Stressing that the issue is “a serious breach” of legislative process and the Constitution; he urged the Speaker to ensure that all relevant documents, including the harmonised versions, the Votes and Proceedings of both chambers and the gazetted copies currently in circulation, are brought before the Committee of the Whole for scrutiny by all members.

Speaking further during plenary, Dasuki warned that allowing laws different from those duly passed by the national assembly to be presented to Nigerians does not only undermine the integrity of the legislature but violates constitutional provisions. Responding, Speaker Abbas Tajudeen said he had taken note of the point of privilege raised by Dasuki and assured that action would be taken on the matter.

According to an in-depth report by the Daily Trust newspaper, copies of the gazetted laws show several areas where the gazetted versions of the tax reform laws differ from what was actually passed by the House. Under Section 3(1)(b), for example, the House-passed bill listed five categories of federal taxes under administration, including taxation of petroleum income and Value Added Tax (VAT). Both items were removed from the gazetted Act; raising questions about the scope of federal tax administration.

Under Section 29, too, while the House version provided for annual returns with reporting thresholds of monthly cumulative N50 million for individuals and N250 million for companies; the gazetted yet Act replaces this with quarterly returns and significantly lowers the thresholds to monthly cumulative N25 million and N100 million respectively. The nature of information to be supplied was also narrowed from names, customer locations and transaction details of new and existing customers to names and addresses only. In addition, provisions in Sections 29(3) and (4) that empowered tax authorities to demand information by notice were removed entirely.

Currency computation rules were also altered in the gazetted version. While Section 39(3) of the House-passed version allowed returns relating to petroleum operations to be computed in the currency of transaction, the altered version mandates that such tax computations be made in US dollars. Also, a new provision, Section 41(8), was introduced into the gazetted Act; requiring a taxpayer dissatisfied with the decision of the Tax Appeal Tribunal, and wanting to appeal to the High Court, to deposit 20 percent of the disputed amount as security before the appeal can be heard.

Enforcement powers were also expanded in Section 60(1) of the controversial copy as the phrase “without an order of the High Court” was added; allowing tax authorities to appoint agents without court approval. Against the provisions of the version passed by the House, the altered version in Section 64(1) equally increased the arrest powers of tax authorities.

Rather than respond positively to the hornets’ nest patriotically stirred by Dasuki on Wednesday December 17, 2025 to, at least, show it abhors forgery, the executive arm chose to ignore the serious allegations of post-passage alteration, insertion, or doctoring of legislative texts. The Deputy Director, Information and Special Adviser on Media to the Clerk of the National Assembly, Shehu Umar Tama, had said that there was no evidence of any variation originating from the legislature; suggesting that if there was any, it happened outside the national assembly.

With the onus shifting to the federal government, it should have taken responsibility by instituting an independent investigation into the circumstances that led to the alleged circulation of an altered version of the new tax laws. Instead, the Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, probably owing to desperation for implementation or other elusive reasons many Nigerians cannot understand, repeatedly kept re-affirming government’s shift-no-ground position on the January 1, 2026 implementation date.

It’s amazing that a government that expressed worry over the rate of certificate forgery in the country and recently directed all MDAs, military and paramilitary formations to enforce mandatory verification of all academic credentials of staff members through the implementation of the National Policy for the Nigeria Education Repository and Databank (NERD) failed to heed calls for a probe of the alleged institutional forgery of laws. The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), members of the7th House of Representatives, and several other groups had separately called for an investigation into how, when, and by whose authority the discrepancies arose in the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the laws passed.

Any government that cares about integrity, due process, transparency and credibility on issues of governance including law-making process should be seen to exercise restraint; choosing to err on the side of caution in its resolve to enforce a controversial version of tax laws. A truly democratic government should be more interested in a delayed enforcement of credible laws than an accelerated implementation of a rather fraudulent set of laws.

Truth be told, the enforcement of an alleged counterfeit version of any set of laws could undermine public trust and confidence in government reforms, no matter how well-intentioned they seem. Because of the moral burden involved, it would be unwise to treat this matter with cold-shoulder as such could further reinforce the insinuation that government is becoming more insensitive to the feelings of citizens. May Allah guide the executive to wholeheartedly withdraw the compromised version of the new tax law and ensure that only the CTC version remains in circulation, Amin.

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