House of Representatives Committee Confirms Illegal Tampering with Nigeria’s Tax Laws

An investigative committee of the House of Representatives has confirmed that unauthorized and illegal alterations were made to key tax reform laws after they were passed by the National Assembly and signed by President Bola Tinubu. The interim report, released following public concern raised by a lawmaker, identified significant discrepancies between the version approved by lawmakers and the one later published.

The Nigeria Tax Administration Act, 2025, was flagged as the most severely compromised. The committee discovered three different versions of the document in circulation. Its findings noted that a directive to “align” the Acts with the government printer involved “procedural anomalies” that “illegally encroached on the core mandate of the National Assembly.”

Key unauthorized changes highlighted in the report include:

· Lowered Reporting Threshold: The gazetted version illegally lowered the individual reporting threshold from N50 million to N25 million.
· New Appeal Rules: Sections 41(8) and 41(9) were inserted, imposing a mandatory 20% deposit for tax appeals, which was not in the approved bill.
· Expanded Enforcement Powers: The published Act granted the revenue service excessive power, allowing for arrests and asset sales without a court order.
· Removed Parliamentary Oversight: The Nigerian Revenue Service Act had provisions for parliamentary oversight removed, which the committee described as a “total disregard” for the doctrine of checks and balances.

The committee described these changes as a clear case of the executive undermining legislative powers and an affront to the exclusive authority of the National Assembly over taxation.