- Safiu Kehinde
The Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) has dismissed allegations that the country’s newly enacted tax reform laws were altered after passage by the National Assembly.
Dr. Zaach Adedeji, the NRS Executive Chairman, refuted the claim that some provisions of the tax laws presented and passed by the National Assembly were omitted from the gazetted version.
Adedeji made this known in a television interview on Monday.
The NRS boss maintained that the executive arm and revenue authority has no power to alter the provisions of the law as passed by the lawmakers.
He however said that an Act of the National Assembly only became effective after Presidential assent and official gazetting, with the gazetted version constituting the authoritative text in the event of disputes.
“Only the officially gazetted Acts carry legal authority and are binding on taxpayers and administrators,
“Revenue agencies, courts, and taxpayers are therefore guided solely by the gazetted law, not draft bills, committee reports or chamber debates.
“Neither the executive nor the revenue authority has any incentive or legal capacity to alter the law after passage,” he said.
Speaking on the transistion of the NRS from the defunct Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Adedeji described the development as a complete overhaul of the architecture of the country’s revenue administration.
Recall that the provision of the recently enacted tax reform laws had changed the nomenclature of the country’s apex tax authority from FIRS to NRS.
According to Adedeji, NRS is not branding but a total institutional upgrade moving from fragmented revenue administration to a modern, digitalised, centralised and intelligence-driven system.
He said that under the new framework, multiple tax and revenue-related functions previously spread across agencies have been consolidated, with a stronger emphasis on data integration, automation, and reduced human discretion.
Adedeji said that the overhaul of the NRS is also designed to support the Federal Government’s broader fiscal objectives.
According to him, Nigeria’s tax-to-GDP ratio has improved in recent years, rising to about 13.5 per cent as of October 2025.
“But it remains below the African average and well short of levels seen in peer emerging markets,” he said.
Adedeji said that the overall aim is on taxing profits and returns rather than capital or investment.
“We are not going to tax poverty; we want to tax prosperity,” he said.