The House of Representatives has confirmed that Nigeria’s newly gazetted tax reform laws were altered without authorisation after being passed by the National Assembly and signed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. An ad-hoc committee set up by the House Minority Caucus said its findings revealed clear discrepancies between the versions approved by lawmakers and those later published in the official gazette.
In an interim report released on Friday, the committee disclosed that the Nigeria Tax Administration Act, 2025, was the most affected, with multiple versions of the law found to be in circulation. The probe followed concerns raised on the floor of the House by Abdulsamad Dasuki, who warned that the gazetted laws differed from what legislators had passed, prompting the Minority Caucus to launch a fact-finding investigation in early January 2026.
According to the panel, a side-by-side comparison of certified copies obtained from the National Assembly and the gazetted documents confirmed unauthorised alterations. These included changes to tax reporting thresholds, the insertion of new provisions requiring taxpayers to deposit 20 per cent of disputed liabilities before appealing, and expanded enforcement powers allowing arrests and asset sales without court approval, clauses the committee said were absent from the original versions passed by lawmakers.
The committee also flagged deletions in the National Revenue Service (Establishment) Act that weakened National Assembly oversight, describing the changes as a serious breach of legislative authority and constitutional checks and balances. Citing the scale of the irregularities, the panel warned that the alterations pose a threat to democratic governance and called for a broader investigation to identify how the changes were introduced and hold those responsible accountable.