By Ola Kay
The Nigeria Revenue Service, NRS, has revealed the main beneficiaries of the new tax law put in place by President Bola Tinubu.
The Executive Chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Service, Zacchaeus Adedeji, stated this during in an interview on Sunday on Arise Television declared the poor are the main beneficiaries of the new tax reforms.
The NRS boss said that government is not taxing more, emphasizing that looking at all the exemptions, more than 95% of the poor are totally exempted.
Adedeji pointed out that removal of Value Added Tax, VAT, on all food item is still to the benefits of the less privileged because 90% of disposable income for poor is for food.
“We remove VAT totally from those ones. The same thing on transportation, which is also in the poor.
“So if you look at the total and the net benefit, the poor are the most beneficiary of this tax reform,” he stressed.
He stressed that tax reform was one of the reforms promised by President Tinubu during his inauguration.
On the controversies surrounding the reforms, he decried penchant for the status que intended to distract the tax administrators. But he agreed that is is a concern for the people to part with their income, assuring that this time efforts will be deployed to tax right as against multiple taxation that was the case in the past.
On the alterations in the gazzetted tax low, with reference to section 30 sub 1 , Section 60 sub section 4 to 6, Adedeji said it was only the assembly who had the laws and handed it over to the NRS.He said the real essence of the reform is to stimulate economic growth by removing hurdles around it.
On the harmonized copy, he said he was concerned only about the gazzetted bill, that the NRS doesn’t not have any role except pass laws made by the National Assembly.
On the MoU with France, he stressed that it was normal to facilitate interactions and not limited to France because Nigeria is not living in isolation, adding that the agreement will not make the data open to any foreign company.
Concerning the computation of the tax in US dollar, he said ” if you don’t have dollar to pay you can pay in current exchange rates, if you don’t have the dollar.”
He argued that it will be market distortion and putting pressure on the currency to ask people to pay in dollar.
As to whether the poor are being taxed to benefit the rich. He said the law actually took effect when it was assented to on 26 June, 2025 by President Tinubu, not that it commenced on January 2026.
He said before now VAT was removed (on food items) from the poor up to 90 per ent which has been addressed by the new tax law.
He said personal income tax is withing the purview of the state internally generated revenue, adding that the federal government is concerned about corporate aspect.
He said government can only tax return , not investment ( minimum tax being in profit).
On penalty for default, Adedeji said when it’s time to make return people tended to react, while it is the same practice in advanced countries.
He expressed optimism that the benefits will start coming up for Nigerians.
He said NRS is a total revenue intelligence management and not fragmented like it was the case under FRS.
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