New Tax Laws Won’t Allow Automatic Bank Deductions — Taiwo Oyedele

Taiwo Oyedele, Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, has assured Nigerians that the new tax laws set to take effect on January 1, 2026, will not involve automatic deductions from personal bank accounts.

Speaking during Channels Television’s end-of-year programme, 2025 In Retrospect: Charting a Pathway to 2026, Oyedele clarified that the reforms are based on self-declaration of income rather than direct debits.

“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. 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,” he said.

Oyedele explained that taxpayers would only need to declare their earnings at the end of the tax year, highlighting that the framework is designed to be simple, transparent, and fair, especially for small business owners and low-income earners.

“You know what constitutes your income and what doesn’t. So you tell the government: ‘This is my income and here is the tax.’ 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,” he said.

He added that the reforms aim to make taxation progressive, removing the burden on vulnerable earners. “If you run a small business as a sole proprietor, an enterprise, or you are just hustling, the system will no longer be regressive. We’ve made it progressive,” Oyedele stated.

Earlier, President Bola Tinubu affirmed that the new tax laws, including those enacted on June 26, 2025, and others starting January 2026, would proceed as planned. He described the reforms as “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a fair, competitive, and robust fiscal foundation,” emphasising that they are intended to restructure and harmonise the system rather than increase taxes.

The president urged all stakeholders to support the implementation, noting that the process is now “firmly in the delivery stage” with no major obstacles threatening its progress.