The Federal Government has assured Nigerians that the new tax laws scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2026, will not involve automatic deductions from personal bank accounts.
The Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, explained that the reforms were anchored on self-declaration of income, not direct debits or surveillance of individual bank transactions.
The tax reform committee chairman gave the assurance on Tuesday while speaking on Channels Television’s end-of-year programme, 2025 In Retrospect: Charting a Pathway to 2026.
Dismissing widespread concerns, Oyedele said there was no plan for government agencies to monitor or debit citizens’ bank accounts.
“People think that the government will debit their bank accounts from next year, and how they even came up with that, I have no idea,” he said.
“Nobody will debit your account for any amount you transfer. Whether it’s a billion or one thousand naira, at the end of the year, you tell the government yourself.”
Self-declaration, Not Surveillance
Oyedele explained that under the new framework, taxpayers would be required to declare their income at the end of the tax year, stating clearly what constitutes their taxable earnings.
“You know what constitutes your income and what doesn’t. So you tell the government: ‘This is my income and here is the tax,’” he said.
According to him, individuals who qualify for exemptions would also be able to declare accordingly.
“If you are exempted, you simply declare: ‘This is my income, and I am exempted from tax.’ It is a very simple process that we are simplifying further,” Oyedele added.
The tax reform chairman stressed that the reforms were designed to be simple, transparent and fair, particularly to protect small business owners and Nigerians earning modest incomes.
He noted that the new system would end what he described as a regressive tax structure that disproportionately affected the vulnerable.
“One of the biggest benefits is that if you run a small business as a sole proprietor, an enterprise, or you are just hustling, the system will no longer be regressive, taxing the vulnerable more. We’ve made it progressive,” he said.
Earlier, President Bola Tinubu reaffirmed that the implementation of the new tax laws, including those enacted on June 26, 2025, and others scheduled to take effect on January 1, 2026, would proceed as planned.
The President described the reforms as “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a fair, competitive, and robust fiscal foundation” for Nigeria.
He clarified that the new laws were not intended to raise taxes, but rather to drive a structural reset, promote harmonisation, protect citizens’ dignity and strengthen the social contract between government and the people.
Tinubu also called on stakeholders to support the implementation phase of the reforms, noting that the process was now “firmly in the delivery stage”.
According to him, no major issue had been identified that would justify halting or disrupting the tax reform agenda.