Tinubu Tax Reforms: Presidency Says Most Levies Are Not New
Many of the taxes Nigerians are now being asked to pay are not new inventions of the current administration but long standing levies that sat dormant for years until the government moved to enforce them. That is the argument the Presidency has advanced as it defends the most far reaching redesign of the country’s tax system in a generation, one that took effect on 1 January 2026 and is already reshaping how much revenue the state collects.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Hard Copy programme, the Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Media and Public Communications, Chief Sunday Dare, said the reforms should not be read as an attempt to pile fresh burdens on households. According to him, several existing taxes had simply remained unimplemented before the government activated them, and the wider objective was to modernise collection and consolidate a cluttered system. “This president came in and collapsed 50 taxes to about 11,” Dare said, adding that exemptions and reliefs had been built in for lower income earners and small businesses.
The context for that claim matters. Nigeria has long recorded one of the lowest tax to Gross Domestic Product ratios in Africa, a reflection of a narrow tax base, widespread evasion and a weak compliance culture. Successive governments have leaned heavily on oil earnings and borrowing rather than on domestic taxation. The reform effort was designed to change that balance.
The overhaul rests on four laws that President Tinubu signed on 26 June 2025 and which came into force on 1 January 2026. They are the Nigeria Tax Act, the Nigeria Tax Administration Act, the Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Act and the Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Act. Together they repeal and replace older statutes including the Personal Income Tax Act, the Companies Income Tax Act, the Value Added Tax Act, the Capital Gains Tax Act, the Petroleum Profits Tax Act and the Stamp Duties Act.
The reforms trace back to a committee Tinubu set up in 2023, chaired by the fiscal policy expert Taiwo Oyedele. The committee, which had more than 80 members, was asked to simplify taxes, merge collection efforts, curb evasion and lift tax revenue to at least 18 per cent of GDP. As part of the changes, the Federal Inland Revenue Service was transformed into the Nigeria Revenue Service.
For individuals, the structure of reliefs has been redrawn. The Consolidated Relief Allowance has been abolished and replaced with a rent relief arrangement, while the Pay As You Earn system now applies progressive rates across income bands. According to Oyedele, between 97 and 98 per cent of Nigerian workers are exempt from PAYE under the new law, with those earning up to 800,000 naira a year paying no personal income tax on that income. The corporate income tax rate, meanwhile, is being reduced from 30 per cent to 25 per cent, and the tax exemption threshold for those who have lost their jobs was raised from 10 million naira to 50 million naira.
Early figures suggest the reforms are moving revenue sharply upward. According to the Executive Chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Service, Dr Zacch Adedeji, total tax collections rose from 12.3 trillion naira in 2023 to 21 trillion naira in 2024 and 28.3 trillion naira in 2025. In the first seven to eight months of 2026 alone, the service says it collected about 27.1 trillion naira, already close to the entire 2025 total.
The service reports that the tax to GDP ratio has climbed from 10.3 per cent in 2023 to 13 per cent, though it remains below the government’s 18 per cent target. Adedeji has attributed the growth to the digitalisation of tax administration, the rollout of a national electronic invoicing system for large taxpayers, the four new laws and Executive Order 9, signed in February 2026, which requires upstream oil and gas operators to remit royalties, taxes and profit oil directly to the Federation Account. Notably, the service says 76 per cent of collections now come from non oil sources, a shift away from the country’s traditional dependence on crude.
The reforms have not been free of controversy, and the government’s insistence that they are neutral in impact is contested. The changes arrive at a time when many Nigerians are grappling with high living costs, and critics argue that tighter enforcement is being felt as a heavier burden regardless of the legal fine print.
The Peoples Democratic Party earlier called for a suspension of the commencement date, citing what it described as discrepancies between the harmonised version of the law and the gazetted version, and accusing the government of prioritising revenue over the welfare of ordinary citizens. President Tinubu rejected calls for delay, confirming in December 2025 that implementation would begin on schedule while pledging to work with the National Assembly to resolve any anomalies identified during the rollout.
Broader economic projections have been cited by officials to support the reform case. The Central Bank of Nigeria has forecast external reserves of about 51 billion dollars for the 2026 fiscal year, real GDP growth of 4.49 per cent and a moderation in inflation. Whether those gains translate into visible improvements in roads, healthcare, education and public services, the outcomes Dare has tied the reforms to, remains the open question that will shape public judgement of the overhaul in the years ahead.
For now, what is confirmed is that the new laws are in force, that revenue is rising and that the number of separate taxes has been sharply reduced. What remains unsettled is whether Nigerians will come to see the reforms as a fairer system, as the government maintains, or as a more efficient way of taxing a population already under strain.