Budget DG Tanimu Yakubu Opposes Suspension of 2025 Tax Act

The Director General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Tanimu Yakubu, has issued a strong warning against suspending Nigeria’s Tax Act 2025, describing such a move as an “expensive” admission that the nation’s fiscal future must remain hostage to oil volatility and administrative chaos.

In a comprehensive statement released on December 31, 2025, Yakubu—who also chairs the Revenue Administration Technical Subcommittee of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms—argued that while the law may have “regressive edges” or drafting inconsistencies, the solution lies in transparent amendments rather than dismantling the entire reform.

The Hidden Cost of Suspension

Yakubu contended that suspension is not a neutral act of caution but a policy choice that rewards misinformation and preserves a dysfunctional tax architecture. He noted that pausing the law prolongs uncertainty, which acts as an “invisible surcharge” on investment and jobs. “Postponing a necessary adjustment rarely reduces its cost; it often increases it,” Yakubu stated, adding that a retreat from the Act would damage Nigeria’s credibility across the entire economic reform agenda.

Five Pillars of the 2025 Reform

The Budget DG clarified that the new tax laws are designed to move Nigeria away from its reliance on volatile commodity revenues toward stable, predictable domestic income. He outlined five core objectives of the Act: it simplifies a maze of overlapping statutes to reduce compliance costs for businesses; it aims to reduce the “multiplicity” of taxes to a single-digit set of productive tax heads, ending the “harassment economy”; it protects low-income earners through explicit thresholds, including exempting minimum wage earners from personal income tax; it modernizes revenue administration using data to reduce human discretion and shrink leakages; and it strengthens institutions for better dispute resolution and taxpayer rights.

The “Enforce and Fix” Strategy

Addressing concerns about drafting discrepancies or regressive features, Yakubu proposed a disciplined “implement, observe, and refine” approach. He suggested a “Governance Mechanism” consisting of a quarterly Amendment Ledger to track stakeholder concerns and implement evidence-based corrections without halting the law. “We do not dismantle the bridge because the paint is still drying,” Yakubu remarked, emphasizing that Nigeria’s fiscal vulnerability is its exposure to global oil markets and exchange-rate shocks, not taxation.

A Call for Informed Criticism

Yakubu concluded by urging Nigerians and senior public figures to read the text of the Act before condemning it, rather than relying on “WhatsApp excerpts” or hearsay. He maintained that while tax reform is never painless, it is the only way to build the civic architecture of accountability needed to fund roads, schools, and hospitals.