The Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) has identified low-income earners as the major beneficiaries of the new tax law introduced by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Speaking during an interview on Sunday on Arise Television, the Executive Chairman of the NRS, Zacchaeus Adedeji, said the tax reforms were deliberately designed to protect the poor while easing their cost-of-living burden.
Adedeji clarified that the government is not increasing taxes on citizens, stressing that extensive exemptions have been built into the new law. According to him, more than 95 per cent of poor Nigerians are completely exempted from the new tax regime.
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He explained that the removal of Value Added Tax (VAT) on food items alone significantly benefits low-income households, noting that food accounts for about 90 per cent of the disposable income of the poor.
“We removed VAT totally from food items. The same thing applies to transportation, which also largely affects the poor,” Adedeji said.
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He added that when all the exemptions and reliefs are considered together, the overall impact of the tax reforms clearly favours low-income earners.
“So if you look at the total and the net benefit, the poor are the most beneficiaries of this tax reform,” he stated.
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