Tax law guidelines delayed as Oyedele cites gazette dispute

Taiwo Oyedele, chairman of the presidential tax reform committee, says the issuance of guidelines for implementing the new tax laws has been delayed due to uncertainty over the final gazetted version.

Oyedele spoke in Lagos on Wednesday during the 2026 Economic Outlook organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN).

The tax expert said he told the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) and the Joint Revenue Board (JRB) to wait, explaining that guidelines for implementing the tax laws cannot be issued until the final version is concluded.

“Our plan in an ideal world was for all these regulations, guidelines, public notices to be ready like three months before December because we wanted people to give their feedback, debate it, finalise and gazette,” he said.

“Well, in our real world, it did not happen like that. And as I speak to you today, we have more than 40 regulations, guidelines and public notices that have been finalised.

“But we can’t release a single one of them because we’re still waiting for what is the final version of the gazette, because the Acts Authentication Act says whatever the government printer publishes is the evidence of the law that was passed.”

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The tax expert said that although the government printer had published the gazette, which had been shared with the public as the official version, lawmakers argued that “it is not what they passed”.

As a result, Oyedele said the lawmakers agreed “they would do their own gazettes”.

“They set up their committee, did their own review, (and) they did their own gazettes. They sent me a soft copy. But that’s not what the Acts Authentication Act says. So I sent my staff, go to the government printer and buy,” he said.

“They went there. As of last week, they said it’s not ready, that they should wait. So I also told everybody — the NRS and JRB — to wait, because we can’t issue guidelines when we are not 100 percent certain that this is the final official position.

“I called my staff this morning, I said go back there, follow up every day. Go there, don’t call them, go and sit down there.”

However, Oyedele said he got feedback that after the copies were printed, the government printer handed them over to the national assembly after a directive that they should not be sold to anyone pending a review.

While “that is a good move,” the tax expert said “it also creates uncertainty”.

He added that although there are claims that the tax laws have been altered, the changes are “not even a lot”.

Oyedele said the alterations are a few items that should not affect the “main thing that people need to know; nothing about the tax rate, the tax body, and the filing deadline”.