The chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, has announced that beginning in 2026, the federal government will initiate tax deductions directly from the bank accounts of Nigerians whose incomes cannot be explained.
Speaking on Seun Okinbaloye’s Mic On Podcast, Mr Oyedele revealed that authorities are preparing to deploy modern tax administration tools to track earnings and ensure appropriate deductions for individuals whose income places them within the taxable range but who currently evade payment or underpay.
“Instead of relying on people to be patriotic and tell us their income, we want to use the system to find out. Your primary role is to declare your income yourself, then the government, on the other hand, will do a fiscal system valuation,” Mr Oyedele said.
“By the time the system validates what you’re doing, we’ll be able to know that you have not paid tax. If you cannot explain yourself, and your tax is N1 million, under this new tax system next year, if you have a bank account, we can debit your bank account.
“Once you’ve been given due process to explain yourself and you refuse, the government can substitute what you have to collect the taxes you owe. Which means we can do things professionally, we can be decent, we don’t need to go on the streets with wood and nails and start beating people up to collect taxes. There are very decent ways of doing that in modern society, and Nigeria should not be the exception,” he explained.
Mr Oyedele further clarified that individuals employed by religious organisations, including churches and mosques, will also be subject to taxation on their earnings. Responding to a question on whether pastors and imams are liable for tax, he stated, “It’s an income. So what the law says is that the church and the mosque would not pay taxes unless they start doing business as an institution or organisation.”
He added, “Anybody they pay, whether it’s a pastor, whether it’s a choir, because these people are just working, they’re working in God’s vineyard, it just happened they are working in the church, but they are workers.
“The person who is selling food, you don’t think he or she is doing the work, the farmers who go to the farm so we can eat? They do what everybody pays.”
However, he stressed that individuals working in religious institutions would still be exempt if their earnings fall below the taxable threshold, noting that the tax system does not discriminate on the basis of gender, ethnicity, race or faith.
He said, “If what you’re getting is below the threshold for taxation, you are exempted—whether an imam or pastor, or don’t believe in God. The moment we exceed that point as an individual, you pay tax. We can start creating a society where some religions are superior to others. I may just decide that I don’t believe in God, and I’m Yoruba and I believe in babalawo, I dont want to pay tax. Tax law is neutral, whether you’re a man or a woman.
“If you’re a low-income earner, your tax will be lower, and if you’re a high-income earner, your tax will go up,” Mr Oyedele said.
