Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Tax Policy and Fiscal Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, has disclosed that the new tax reform bills currently before the National Assembly will be passed into law in the first quarter (Q1) of 2025.
Oyedele disclosed this in his speech at The Platform, an event organised by The Covenant Nation to facilitate national development, held at the weekend.
According to Oyedele, the implementation of the tax reform bills will commence in July.
“I need to talk about the tax reforms. Part of the expectation is we expect the tax reforms to be approved, particularly the tax reform bills in 2025.
“Our expectation is before the end of Q1 and therefore, we can give notice to taxpayers to prepare themselves with capacity and begin to implement around 1st of July,” he said.
On the issue of fuel subsidy, Oyedele described the period before the removal as one characterised by “Window-dressed realities.”
According to him, while subsidies made fuel, electricity, and other essentials appear affordable, they masked the unsustainable fiscal realities underpinning the Nigerian economy.
“Removing subsidies is the best decision we made as a country. And we can now say that for once, the subsidy is gone. We were living in window-dressed realities. If you look back to about two years ago, the naira exchange rate was N450 depending on who you asked. But was our exchange rate really N450? If you wanted to buy petrol, it was under N200 per litre, but was it really under N200 per litre?,” he queried.
The tax reform bills were sent to the National Assembly in 2024 and attracted huge controversy and opposition, particularly from the northern part of the country.
The bills, however, have received the backing of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) and would soon be considered by the National Assembly which had earlier stayed action on them, following the controversy.
The NGF in lending its support for the bill, had proposed a new “equitable” sharing formula for Value Added Tax (VAT).
