The House of Representatives Minority Caucus has confirmed that key provisions of Nigeria’s 2025 tax reform laws were altered in the versions gazetted and circulated to the public, describing the changes as a breach of the Constitution and an affront to the authority of the legislature, according to an interim report released on Friday by its Ad-hoc Committee on Tax Laws, which emerged after a comparison of the Certified True Copies (CTCs) of the four Acts passed by the National Assembly with earlier gazetted versions revealed material discrepancies, a controversy that began on 17 December 2025 when Abdulsamad Dasuki (PDP, Sokoto) raised a matter of privilege alleging that the published laws differed from those debated and approved by parliament, prompting the Minority Caucus, led by Kingsley Chinda, to set up a fact-finding committee chaired by Afam Ogene, whose preliminary findings showed that the Nigeria Tax Act, 2025, the Nigeria Tax Administration Act, 2025, the National Revenue Service (Establishment) Act, 2025, and the Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Act, 2025, which took effect on 1 January, contained altered provisions including lowered tax compliance reporting thresholds, new conditions requiring a mandatory 20 per cent deposit before appealing tax decisions, expanded enforcement powers allowing arrests and sale of seized assets without court orders, changes to the definition of federal taxes, and a requirement for petroleum tax computation in foreign currency, with the report noting that “There were three different versions of the documents in circulation,” and stressing that several contentious sections, including those affecting parliamentary oversight, “were not in the authentic version passed by NASS,” leading the committee to describe the situation as marked by “illegalities and impunity” and to request additional time for a deeper investigation to ensure accountability and protect Nigeria’s democratic order.
