Nigeria has collected more than ₦600 billion in Value Added Tax (VAT) from international digital service providers including Facebook, Amazon and Netflix, officials confirmed Wednesday, hailing it as a milestone in fiscal reforms aimed at broadening the country’s fragile revenue base.
The Special Adviser on Tax Policy to the Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Mathew Osanekwu, said the payments followed amendments to the VAT Act that brought non-resident digital firms into the Nigerian tax net under Section 10. He explained that the companies are now registered in Nigeria and act as collection agents.
Committee chairman, Professor Taiwo Oyedele, stressed that the reforms do not introduce new taxes but are designed to ease the burden on low- and middle-income earners while aligning Nigeria with global best practices. He recalled that President Bola Tinubu suspended multiple levies imposed in the final days of the Buhari administration, including excise duties on plastics and imported vehicles.
Under the reforms, expected to take full effect in January 2026, Nigerians earning less than ₦800,000 a year will be exempt from personal income tax, while small businesses with turnover below ₦100 million will face a zero percent corporate tax rate. The overhaul also seeks to consolidate overlapping taxes and link levies more transparently to public projects.
Nigeria’s tax-to-GDP ratio currently stands at 10.8 percent, one of the lowest globally and well below Africa’s 16 percent average. Oyedele warned that the economy inherited in May 2023 was “on the verge of collapse,” weighed down by subsidy debts and crude pre-sales, and cautioned that without reforms, Nigeria risked a Sri Lanka-style shutdown in fuel imports.
“The right question is not whether life feels better now than two years ago,” Oyedele told participants at a media workshop in Abuja. “It is whether life would have been better today if those reforms had not been undertaken.”
