The Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, says the federal government will, from 2026, begin automatically deducting taxes directly from the bank accounts of Nigerians with unexplained or undeclared income.
Speaking on Seun Okinbaloye’s Mic On Podcast, Mr Oyedele revealed that the government is setting up a modern tax system capable of tracking income flows and ensuring that individuals within taxable brackets who are not paying the correct amount of tax are identified and charged accordingly.
“Instead of relying on people to be patriotic and tell us their income, we want to use the system to find out. Your primary role is to declare your income yourself, then the government, on the other hand, will do a fiscal system valuation,” he said.
“By the time the system validates what you’re doing, we’ll be able to know that you have not paid tax. If you cannot explain yourself, and your tax is N1 million… under this new tax system next year, if you have a bank account, we can debit your bank account.”
Mr Oyedele stressed that the government will ensure due process before such deductions are executed.
“Once you’ve been given due process to explain yourself and you refuse, the government can substitute what you have to collect the taxes you owe. Which means we can do things professionally, we can be decent… There are very decent ways of doing that in modern society, and Nigeria should not be the exception,” he stated.
The tax reform chairman also clarified that religious workers—pastors, imams, choir members and others—will not be exempt from taxation if they earn above the taxable income threshold.
When asked whether religious leaders’ salaries are taxable, he responded:
“It’s an income. So what the law says is that the church and the mosque would not pay taxes unless they start doing business as an institution or organisation.”
He added that anyone paid by religious bodies is liable to pay tax, just like any other worker.
“Anybody they pay, whether it’s a pastor, whether it’s a choir… these people are just working… they’re working in God’s vineyard, it just happens they are working in the church, but they are workers.”
He stressed that the tax system does not recognise religious or cultural exemptions.
“If what you’re getting is below the threshold for taxation, you are exempted—whether an imam or pastor, or don’t believe in God… Tax law is neutral, whether you’re a man or a woman,” he explained.
According to Oyedele, the reforms aim to build a fairer system where low-income earners pay less and high-income earners pay more.
“If you’re a low-income earner, your tax will be lower, and if you’re a high-income earner, your tax will go up,” he said.
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Kabiru Ahmad