The Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Taiwo Oyedele, has said Nigerian tax authorities cannot debit taxpayers’ bank accounts without first exhausting the full judicial process, dismissing claims that newly gazetted tax laws permit arbitrary deductions.
Oyedele clarified on Wednesday while speaking on the Arise Television Morning Show, amid public controversy over alleged alterations to the tax laws and fears that tax officials could gain direct access to bank accounts without court approval.
He explained that before any deduction can be made from a taxpayer’s account, the tax liability must be conclusively established through the courts.
“Before you get to this power of substitution, that tax liability must be final and conclusive,” Oyedele said. “You have to go through that process that involves stages of the courts.”
According to him, the process begins with a tax assessment issued to the taxpayer, followed by an objection stage. If unresolved, the dispute proceeds to the Tax Appeal Tribunal and may advance through the High Court, Court of Appeal, and ultimately the Supreme Court.
“That is when that tax is final and conclusive,” he said. “That is when the taxman can come to you.”
Oyedele noted that the authority to recover unpaid taxes from bank accounts—known as the “power of substitution”—is not new, stressing that it already exists under Nigeria’s current tax laws.
“That power is in the current law that we have,” he said. “It has always been there.”
He, however, cautioned against misrepresenting the provision in a manner that could create unnecessary panic in the banking system.
“I know the headline tomorrow will now be that I said they can take money from a bank account,” Oyedele said. “We’re careful not to have a run on banks.”
He added that although tax authorities can legally recover funds from bank accounts, such action can only occur after an elaborate, court-backed process and is usually reserved for serious cases.
Oyedele also dismissed claims that the gazetted tax laws were fake or secretly altered to strip courts of their powers, saying many of the allegations circulating publicly were not supported by any official investigation.
“I don’t think it would be productive to start discussing alleged alterations that we don’t even know where they came from,” he said, adding that some of the provisions being circulated did not exist in the gazetted laws.
He further clarified that some controversial sections cited by critics, including claims that taxpayers must pay a deposit before filing an appeal, were not contained in the Nigeria Tax Administration Act.
While acknowledging concerns over public trust, Oyedele said confusion had been worsened by the absence of an officially published harmonised version of the bills passed by the National Assembly.
“If the harmonized version had been published, we wouldn’t even be having some of these allegations,” he said.
Responding to calls for the suspension of the new tax laws, Oyedele said such a move would be impractical, noting that parts of the reforms had already taken effect, including the establishment of the Nigeria Revenue Service.
“In tax matters, if you come in the way of revenue generation, even for one month, that’s a crisis,” he said.
He urged Nigerians to read the tax laws in their entirety rather than isolating individual provisions, warning that selective interpretation had fuelled unnecessary fear.
