The Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) and the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) have locked horns over the operational rollouts of the Nigeria Tax Act (NTA) 2025. Speaking at a high-level stakeholders’ tax roundtable in Abuja, themed “Tax Reality: Ripple Effects on Industry and Commerce,” organized private sector leaders warned that overlapping compliance mandates are shrinking the national tax base, while administrators defended the progressive tax structure as vital to halting Nigeria’s spiral into debt.
The debate arrives as Nigerian enterprises face significant macroeconomic headwinds, including persistent inflation, volatile foreign exchange rates, infrastructure deficits, and high energy costs. Business leaders are calling on the federal government to move beyond theoretical promises of tax harmonization and deliver practical relief for struggling micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs).
1. The Organised Private Sector Case: Compliance Fatigue and Inflationary Friction
Led by Dr. Aliyu Hong, Chairman of the ACCI’s National Policy Advocacy Centre (NPAC) and Second Deputy President of the chamber, the organized private sector argued that the current implementation of the 2025 reforms is stifling production. While acknowledging that fiscal restructuring is necessary, Hong warned that the aggressive expansion of the tax net, without fixing structural economic weaknesses, puts undue pressure on companies trying to survive rather than grow.
The ACCI identified several key regulatory challenges:
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Theoretical vs. Practical Harmonization: Despite official guidelines aimed at simplifying collections, businesses continue to face overlapping tax demands from multiple federal, state, and local agencies.
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The Cost of Multi-Taxation: These duplicate levies artificially inflate production and distribution costs, making local manufacturers less competitive against imported goods.
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The Risk of a Shrinking Tax Base: When compliance burdens become too complicated or expensive, businesses are disincentivized from formalizing, which ultimately shrinks the state’s long-term tax revenues.
2. The Regulator Defense: Progressive Restructuring and Halting Debt Dependence
Pushing back against calls to freeze or scale down the revenue drive, the President of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN), Mr. Innocent Ohagwa, argued that rolling back the reforms would severely damage Nigeria’s fiscal stability. With the country working to reduce its reliance on costly international borrowing, Ohagwa maintained that the updated tax code is designed to protect low-income earners while optimizing state revenue generation.
The CITN highlighted several structural safety valves embedded in the new tax architecture:
| Fiscal Reform Pivot | Statutory Engineering Component | Intended Macroeconomic Outcome |
| Progressive Wealth Redistribution | Higher tax brackets for high-net-worth individuals and premium corporate entities. | Shifts the tax burden away from low-income earners and small businesses. |
| Digital Administration Upgrades | Transitioning collections to automated, paperless compliance portals. | Blocks institutional leakages and eliminates illegal manual collections. |
| Deficit Financing Relief | Scaling up internal revenue generation to fund public infrastructure. | Reduces the federal government’s reliance on high-interest sovereign debt. |
Ohagwa urged the business community to remain patient, noting that a functional modern state cannot operate without stable tax revenues to build roads, secure trade corridors, and maintain power infrastructure.
3. Building Public Trust Through Institutional Coordination
Supporting this view, the Director-General of the ACCI, Mr. Jideani Agabaidu, emphasized that the success of any tax system relies on clear communication, transparency, and public trust. For businesses to invest confidently over five-to-ten-year horizons, tax policies must remain stable and predictable rather than changing with every shift in the regulatory landscape.
To bridge this gap, the roundtable participants are compiling a set of practical policy recommendations for the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and joint state tax boards. The goal is to move toward a unified, single-window collection system that protects vulnerable MSMEs, rewards productivity, and transforms the tax system into a driver of industrial growth rather than an operational bottleneck.
