The Joint Revenue Board has said Nigeria’s ongoing tax reform has reduced the burden on low-income earners and micro-scale businesses, while also eliminating multiple nuisance taxes.
The Executive Secretary of the JRB, Olusegun Adesokan, made this known while reviewing the progress of the reform one year after its implementation.
Adesokan spoke at the 160th meeting of the JRB held in Kaduna State from September 1 to 2, 2026. The meeting was themed, “One Year of Reform: Assessing Progress and Addressing Challenges.”
Addressing concerns that the reform had increased the tax burden on Nigerians, Adesokan said the new measures had instead provided relief for people and businesses at the lower end of the income scale.
“Addressing the misconception that the tax reform has increased taxes, the reform has rather reduced the tax burden on low-income earners, eliminated multiple nuisance taxes while providing reliefs for low-income earners and micro-scale businesses,” he said.
He disclosed that 18 state Houses of Assembly had domesticated the model harmonised taxes and levies law aimed at tackling overlapping and multiple taxation.
According to him, the legislation reduced more than 50 collection items previously administered by state and local governments to nine sub-heads.
The law also abolished cash collection and the mounting of roadblocks for revenue collection, measures Adesokan said had contributed to progress in harmonising taxes and levies across the subnational governments.
The JRB meeting, which brings together revenue authorities across the country, was held to assess the progress of the new revenue regime, identify gaps and address challenges emerging from its implementation.
Declaring the meeting open, Kaduna State Governor, Uba Sani, said the reform had created greater opportunities for domestic resource mobilisation and strengthened the country’s capacity to finance development.
He, however, said the focus of the reform should go beyond revenue collection to making compliance easier for taxpayers.
“The objective of the reform should not be simply to collect revenue; it should be to build a tax system in which compliance becomes easier, enforcement becomes more intelligent and voluntary compliance becomes a norm,” Sani said.
The governor urged the JRB to identify bottlenecks affecting revenue collection, address institutional weaknesses that create friction between taxpayers and revenue authorities, and explore the use of technology to improve tax administration.
In his opening remarks, the JRB Chairman, Dr Zacch Adedeji, who was represented by the Executive Director, Finance and Corporate Services of the Nigeria Revenue Service, Muhammad Lawal Abubakar, said the meeting was an opportunity to review the progress of the reform and address emerging challenges.
He said the success of the reform should ultimately be measured by improved revenue mobilisation, increased compliance, better taxpayer experience and a stronger contribution to national development.
Sani also said the tax reform had contributed to an increase in national tax revenue, which he put at N21.6tn in 2026.
He said national revenue had risen from approximately N10.1tn in 2023 to N21.6tn in 2024 and about N36.8tn in 2025.
The JRB is made up of the 38 revenue authorities in Nigeria, including the Nigeria Revenue Service, the 36 state revenue services and the Federal Capital Territory Internal Revenue Service.