Nigeria’s Minister of State for Finance, Taiwo Oyedele, has acknowledged that errors were discovered in the country’s new tax reform laws, assuring that corrective steps are already in progress.
Oyedele made the disclosure while speaking at a fireside chat during the 2026 annual conference of the Nigerian Bar Association Section on Legal Practice, where concerns over inconsistencies in the legislation were raised.
The issue follows claims by a member of the House of Representatives, Abdussamad Dasuki, who alleged that differences exist between the tax laws passed by the National Assembly and the final gazetted version available to the public.
In response, the House of Representatives set up a seven-member panel to investigate the alleged discrepancies, while the finance ministry initially urged Nigerians to await the outcome of the probe.
According to a statement from the fiscal reforms committee, Oyedele admitted that “errors occurred due to manual processes and multiple stages of review” during the drafting and approval process.
He, however, stressed that a proposed finance bill is already being prepared to correct the identified issues and ensure consistency in the final legal framework.
“What we need is a more transparent and reliable legislative process where every version of a law is publicly available,” he said.
Oyedele added that enforcement of the reforms would not be arbitrary, noting that the new tax system is guided by principles of transparency, fairness, and policy intent.
He explained that the reforms are designed to address long-standing inefficiencies in Nigeria’s tax structure, including disparities between personal and corporate taxation that previously discouraged business formalisation.
According to him, the new framework aims to encourage formalisation, improve consistency in tax administration, and reduce discretionary interpretation of tax laws.
He further noted that policy instability in the past, including abrupt tax proposals, had weakened investor confidence and discouraged long-term investment.
“If policies can change overnight, it sends the wrong signal to investors. Consistency is critical,” he said.
On inclusivity, Oyedele stressed that the new tax structure protects low-income earners and small businesses, many of whom earn below N70,000 monthly.
“Nearly half of working Nigerians earn less than N70,000 monthly. Taxing them aggressively would be unjust,” he said.
He also highlighted that the reforms remove minimum tax on loss-making businesses, describing the previous rule as effectively taxing capital instead of profit.
Oyedele concluded by calling for improved efficiency in public revenue management, noting that Nigeria still lags behind peer economies in tax collection performance.
