The Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, expressed his expectation that the Nigeria Tax Reform Bill would be enacted into law by the end of the first quarter of 2025.
He also predicted that national discussions on the bill would intensify as the country approaches its implementation later in the year.
He expressed appreciation for the prolonged deliberations surrounding the proposed reforms, stating “Tax reforms have turned out to be quite interesting for almost the better part of 2024. It is normal to have debates on tax matters because it affects people directly. We are engaging with our key stakeholders and believe we are making progress; we do expect that the Tax Bill should be enacted into law before the end of Q1 2025.
“That would give us about three months, 90 days notice, to commence the implementation of the Reform Bills by the second half of the year, by early July.”
Oyedele praised the Tax Reform Bills, noting that certain provisions “excite me every time” as he anticipates the positive impact the reforms could have on the country.
“For the first time in my adult life, he said, “We have this comprehensive reform where we’re focusing on businesses, how to make them more competitive, how to reduce their costs, how to bring down their tax rates, and how to ensure that small businesses can thrive without the excess burden that they have been dealing with for only God knows how long.
“How do you protect the most vulnerable people, low-income earners? How do you ensure that within governments there’s some sanity as to how revenues are collected and how taxes are introduced?”
He noted that the tax reforms were designed to address various gaps, including abuse in the public sector, stressing, “We know of government agencies that got their establishment laws amended and introduced taxes to fund agencies that the private sector has to provide.
“It was almost like nobody was thinking that these private sectors have limited resources. They do not have endless pockets to fund everybody and every agency. So, the fact that we’re having this national conversation, which is creating that awareness in itself, is a win, and it can only get better.”
He expressed a positive outlook on Nigeria’s fiscal health in 2025, stating “Overall, I am positive about 2025 and what it holds for our country, for businesses, for individuals, and for families, and by complementing the other initiatives of governments with sound fiscal policies, I think it can only get better.
“We expect that inflation will start to moderate because the factors that push up costs and prices in 2024 are no longer there in 2025. It’s almost like a reset.”
Furthermore, Oyedele suggested that the country should establish a Producers’ Cost Index (PCI) to obtain more reliable data for addressing inflation.
He emphasized the importance of a PCI while discussing the rebasing of the Consumer Price Index, which is used by the National Bureau of Statistics to measure inflation.
“One of the biggest issues we’ve had to deal with in the past couple of years has been high inflation,” Oyedele asserted. “Some of us did not entirely believe that monetary policy could solve the problem because some of the issues were structural and not entirely due to excess money supply or excess demand. Otherwise, why is it that manufacturers have over N1tn of unsold inventory?
“It means that capacity is down, which means they are producing less, and then there is more unsold inventory. Once we rebase the CPI basket, it will give us a more reliable indication of where things are going.”
