The Joint Revenue Board Executive Secretary, Olusegun Adesokan, has said Nigeria’s tax reform has eased the burden on low-income earners and micro-scale businesses while helping to eliminate multiple and nuisance taxes across the country.
Adesokan made the declaration during the 160th meeting of the Joint Revenue Board in Kaduna State, where revenue authorities reviewed the first year of implementation of the new tax regime.
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The meeting, held from September 1 to 2 under the theme, “One Year of Reform: Assessing Progress and Addressing Challenges,” brought together revenue officials to examine the gains recorded under the reforms and identify areas requiring further attention.
Responding to concerns that the reforms could increase the pressure on already struggling households, Adesokan said the opposite had been the case.
“Addressing the misconception that the tax reform has increased taxes, the reform has rather reduced the tax burden on low-income earners,” he said, adding that the measures had also eliminated multiple nuisance taxes and provided relief for micro-scale businesses.
The claim comes against the backdrop of the Nigeria Tax Act 2025, which took effect from January 1, 2026 as part of a broader overhaul of the country’s tax architecture.
The Federal Government has described the new framework as an attempt to simplify taxation, improve compliance and create greater certainty for taxpayers and businesses.
One of the clearest provisions affecting individual taxpayers is the introduction of a zero per cent tax band on the first N800,000 of taxable income.
The subsequent income bands are taxed progressively, with the highest rate of 25 per cent applying to taxable income above N50 million.
The new framework also provides a rent relief of 20 per cent of annual rent paid, subject to a maximum of N500,000, among other eligible deductions.
For revenue authorities, however, the reform is not simply about reducing taxes.
It is also designed to broaden the tax base, simplify collection and encourage people and businesses that are liable to pay tax to comply more willingly.
Adesokan said one significant development at the subnational level was the adoption of the model harmonised taxes and levies law by 18 State Houses of Assembly.
The legislation, according to the JRB, has reduced more than 50 revenue collection items previously administered by states and local government areas to nine sub-heads.
It has also abolished cash collection and the use of roadblocks for revenue collection, measures intended to reduce opportunities for abuse while making the process less cumbersome for taxpayers.
The emphasis on harmonisation is particularly important in a country where overlapping levies and repeated demands from different tiers of government have long been a source of frustration for traders, small businesses and other taxpayers.
The reforms are also being implemented alongside greater digitalisation of tax administration.
The JRB has previously said its new Tax ID platform was designed as a self-service system and rejected fears that obtaining a Tax ID would automatically allow money to be deducted from taxpayers’ bank accounts.
The Nigeria Revenue Service has similarly framed the reforms as a shift away from simply extracting more money from taxpayers.
Its Chairman, Zacch Adedeji, said in August that the agency’s objective was to “tax prosperity rather than poverty”, arguing that stronger businesses and higher incomes would ultimately generate more sustainable revenue.
At the Kaduna meeting, Governor Uba Sani reinforced that argument, saying the success of the reforms should not be measured by revenue collection alone.
“The objective of the reform should not be simply to collect revenue; it should be to build a tax system in which compliance becomes easier, enforcement becomes more intelligent and voluntary compliance becomes a norm,” Sani said.
There are early indications of stronger revenue mobilisation at the state level. Kaduna’s Internally Generated Revenue rose from N58 billion before 2023 to N62 billion in 2023, N71 billion in 2024 and N85 billion in 2025, according to outgoing Kaduna State Internal Revenue Service Chairman Jerry Adams.
Adams said monthly collections had now reached an average of about N10 billion, putting the state on course towards annual IGR of approximately N120 billion.
Sani also said Nigeria’s revenue had risen to approximately N21.6 trillion in the first half of 2026, representing a 49 per cent increase over the corresponding period of 2025.
He put national revenue at about N10.1 trillion in 2023, N21.6 trillion in 2024 and N36.8 trillion in 2025.
The figures suggest that the reform is beginning to deliver one of its central objectives, improving domestic resource mobilisation.
But the more difficult test will be whether higher collections can coexist with a tax system that ordinary Nigerians perceive as fair, predictable and easy to navigate.
For low-income earners and small businesses, that distinction matters.
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A reform can only be regarded as genuinely successful if the promise of simpler taxation is reflected not only in official revenue figures but also in the everyday experience of people who earn, trade and operate businesses within Nigeria’s increasingly formalised tax system.
Ibrahim Onipede is a journalist and contributor to Freelanews.com, covering news, public affairs, and human-interest stories.
