Taiwo Oyedele, chairman of the Presidential Taskforce on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, on Tuesday disclosed that the Withholding Tax Regulations 2024 has been gazetted.
Disclosing this on Channels Television’s Independence Day special event which was tagged, “Nigeria’s Challenging Economy: Strategies For Recovery”, Oyedele said the gazetted regulation will be published on Wednesday.
“We have seen some of the processes within government are very slow, the bureaucracy can be better. So, one of the positives is that by going through this process of trying to do a holistic fiscal reform, we have also identified those areas where we can make things easier such that next time when there is an approval by the government almost immediately you can feel the impact.
“I do have some good news, the good news is that the withholding tax regulation has now been gazetted. So, the only reason it hasn’t been published today is because it is public holiday, so first thing tomorrow you will see a copy of the gazette and that provides a lot of relief not just for manufacturers but also every other business in terms of taking away some of the burdens of funding their working capital,” Oyedele said.
The Deduction of Tax at Source (Withholding) Regulations 2024 was announced by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, on July 1, 2024 as part of President Bola Tinubu’s economic reforms.
Withholding tax is a tax collection mechanism that serves as an advance payment of income tax. It is deducted at source directly from payments for required transactions.
Speaking further, Oyedele emphasised how his committee is working to improve the ease of doing business in Nigerian, saying that it is one of the three pillars of the work of his committee.
“Essentially when you are talking about ease of doing business, it is one of the three pillars of the work of my committee along with so many Nigerians who are members of that committee, putting in everything that they can without asking for anything in return because they love their country and that gives us hope.”
The tax committee chairman also disclosed that the Economic Stabilization Bill which his committee has been working on for some months has been approved by the Federal Executive Council.
He said the bill will go to the National Assembly in a couple of days where it is expected to be passed into law.
