From Kayemo News
The federal government has halted the issuance of guidelines for the implementation of the new tax laws, citing uncertainty over the final version, Taiwo Oyedele, Chairman, Presidential Tax Reform Committee, has revealed.
He said he had told the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) and the Joint Revenue Board (JRB) to wait because guidelines on the implementation of tax laws cannot be issued.
Oyedele spoke in Lagos yesterday while responding to questions after delivering a keynote address on the 2026 Economic Outlook organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, with the theme ‘ICAN@60: Accountability as the Bedrock for National Development.’
He said concerns over whether the documents currently in circulation represent the final version of the laws prompted him to instruct his team to buy a printed copy of the law from the government’s printer.
He said the feedback from his staff revealed that the National Assembly had taken custody of all printed copies of the tax laws and directed that they should not be sold or made available to the public until lawmakers conclude their review.
Efforts by Daily Trust to get a reaction from the Senate’s spokesman, Senator Yemi Adaramodu (APC, Ekiti South), were unsuccessful as he neither answered several phone calls nor responded to a WhatsApp message seeking his comments on the matter.
Also, calls to the mobile telephone line of the spokesperson of the House of Representatives, Akin Rotimi, did not go through last night.
While acknowledging that legislative review is a normal part of the lawmaking process, Oyedele noted that the restriction on access has reintroduced uncertainty into the tax reform process.
He said: “The Acts Authentication Act says whatever the government printer publishes is the evidence of the law that was passed.
“That government printer published something, which we said is the official version. Lawmakers said it is not what they passed. So, they said they would do their own gazettes.
“They set up their committee, they did their own review, they did their own gazettes. They sent me a copy, soft copy. But that’s not what the Acts Authentication Act says.
“So, I sent my staff, go to the government printer and go and buy. They went there, but as of last week, they said it’s not ready. That they should wait.
“So, I also told everybody, the NRS, JRB, you too wait, because we cannot issue guidelines.
“We are not 100 per cent certain that this is the final official position. I called my staff this (yesterday) morning, I said go back there, follow up every day, go, go there, don’t call them, go and sit down there.
“And I got feedback as I was here that says that… I don’t even know whether I should say this or not because I don’t know what the press will report. But in the interest of accountability and transparency, my staff told me that they said everything that they printed, the National Assembly collected from them and said they shouldn’t sell to anyone; that they want to complete their review. While that is good, it also creates uncertainty again.” {Daily Trust}