Tax laws: Nobody will debit your bank account, Taiwo Oyedele assures Nigerians

Taiwo Oyedele, chairman of the presidential committee onfiscal policy and tax reforms, has assured Nigerians that the new tax reformswill not result in automatic debits from bank accounts, regardless of theamount transferred or description. Speaking on Channels Television’s end-of-year special onTuesday, Oyedele said no tax authority anywhere in the world has the capacityto pursue every individual, noting that tax enforcement typically targets high-income earners rather than low-income bank users. “Nobody will debit your account. Any amount of money youtransfer, whether it is 1 billion, whether it is 1,000, it doesn’t matter howyou describe it. Nobody will debit your bank account,” the chairman said. ‘RICH USING AVERAGE PERSONS TO FIGHT REFORMS’The chairman said concerns over bank debits have largelybeen driven by misinformation, adding that many Nigerians opposing the reformsare not in the income bracket targeted by the policy. “The people that are fighting us the most are the people whodon’t have 1 million in their bank account,” the chairman said. “You know that the NDIC said 98 percent of bank holders inNigeria can’t boast of 500k in their bank account. Those are the peoplefighting. “I think something we underestimated in this reform. We saidthe current system is regressive, taxing the vulnerable more. Let us make itprogressive. In fact, there was one of our meetings where we were saying it isgoing to be hard for these rich people to go out and be protesting because theydon’t want people to know that they are rich. “We underestimated how these guys can manipulate the averageperson to fight the fights on their behalf. Even against their own interests,that was what played out and it is totally unbelievable. “There are content creators who admitted they make up to$10,000 a month. They don’t want to pay tax. You think they will go and createa content that says they want to tax $10,000 a month? They say they are goingto debit your bank account so you can help them fight the reform.” He explained that the reformed tax system is based onself-declaration, with taxpayers expected to disclose their income at the endof the year and pay tax accordingly. According to the chairman, individuals who are exempt fromtax will only need to declare their status, stressing that the process is beingsimplified to encourage compliance. Oyedele’s assurance comes after President Bola Tinubuconfirmed that the implementation of the new tax laws will commence asscheduled, despite calls to stop its implementation. While acknowledging the public outcry over alleged changesin the tax laws approved by the national assembly, Tinubu said there is nosubstantial reason not to implement the reforms. The president said the reforms are a once-in-a-generationopportunity to build a fair, competitive, and robust fiscal foundation, andthey are not designed to raise taxes.

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