Nigeria’s businesses strained by $3.5bn annual tax pushing naira devaluation

The chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Taiwo Oyedele, has revealed that Nigerian businesses are shouldering an estimated $3.5 billion annual tax burden in foreign currency, exacerbating the naira’s depreciation.

Speaking at the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit’s (NFIU) first revenue assurance summit on Tuesday, Oyedele emphasized the need for a coherent policy environment to foster investment and inter-agency collaboration.

“We found that Nigerian businesses are being asked to pay some taxes in dollars — NIMASA, NPA, etc., which amounts to an estimated $3.5 billion a year,” Oyedele stated. “We are crying that our naira is losing value; why wouldn’t it lose value when we impose unnecessary dollar demands?”

Oyedele also addressed the issue of government agencies selling data, citing the Joint Tax Board’s (JTB) experience of being asked to pay for data access from governmental sources.

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“In the same Nigeria, government has data and government is selling data, and we say government does not have revenue,” he noted. “How are we supposed to have revenue if we are selling data?”

To combat this, Oyedele announced plans to draft legislation mandating the free provision of government-held data, with strict deadlines for compliance.

“Our economy must be designed to be conducive and investment-friendly… So we drafted a law, it is not your data, it is our data, you will give it. In fact, we will give you a deadline of 48 hours. If you don’t release the data, there will be consequences. We are criminalising it. Give the data.”

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