Presidency Breaks Silence Over Claims of Secretly Altered Tax Reform Laws

• Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Taiwo Oyedele, has dismissed claims that Nigeria’s newly enacted tax reform laws were altered after passage, urging Nigerians to allow lawmakers to conclude their probe.

The Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Taiwo Oyedele, has broken his silence on the controversy surrounding allegations that the recently enacted tax reform laws, scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2026, were secretly altered after their passage by the National Assembly.

His comments come amid growing demands by civil society organisations and lawmakers for an independent probe into the alleged discrepancies between the versions of the laws passed by the National Assembly and those later gazetted and made available to the public.

Opposition figures, including former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and the 2023 Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, had also raised concerns and called for the suspension of the laws’ implementation pending clarification.

The controversy intensified last week when a member of the House of Representatives, Abdulsamad Dasuki, alleged discrepancies between the tax laws passed by lawmakers and the versions later gazetted. Dasuki argued that the differences amounted to a breach of lawmakers’ legislative rights, insisting that the gazetted versions did not reflect what was debated and approved on the floor of the House.

However, speaking on Channels Television’s Morning Brief on Monday, Oyedele dismissed the claims as false, noting that there was no verified document to compare against the gazetted versions.

“Before you can say there is a difference between what was gazetted and what was passed, we have what has not been gazetted. We don’t have what was passed,” Oyedele said.

He explained that the official harmonised bills certified by the clerk of the National Assembly, which were transmitted to the President, were not publicly available.

“The official harmonised bills certified by the clerk, which the National Assembly sent to the President, we don’t have a copy to compare. Only the lawmakers can say authoritatively what was sent,” he said.

“It should be the House of Representatives or Senate version. It should be the harmonised version certified by the clerk. Even me, I cannot say that I have it. I only have what was presented to Mr President to sign,” he added.

Addressing a controversial provision, Section 41(8), which reportedly required the payment of a 20 per cent deposit, Oyedele said he contacted the House of Representatives committee for clarification.

“I know that particular provision is not in the final gazette, but it was in the draft gazette. Some people decided that they should write the report of the committee before the committee had met, and it had circulated everywhere,” he said.

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According to Oyedele, the committee confirmed to him that it had not met on the matter.

“What is out there in the media did not come from the committee set up by the House of Representatives. I think we should allow them do the investigation,” he added.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu recently signed four tax reform bills into law, which the Federal Government has described as the most far-reaching overhaul of Nigeria’s tax system in decades.

The new laws — the Nigeria Tax Act, Nigeria Tax Administration Act, Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Act, and the Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Act — will operate under a unified authority, the Nigeria Revenue Service.

Despite resistance from some federal lawmakers, particularly from the northern region, the reforms are aimed at simplifying tax compliance, broadening the tax base, eliminating multiple taxation, and modernising revenue collection across federal, state and local governments.