Tax Matters: NRS Chairman speaks on ‘savings’ in Nigerians’ bank accounts, gains of reforms

*Dr. Zacch Adedeji, Executive Chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Service, reassures consumers that neither the old regime nor the new tax administration system empowers any authority to tax money kept in Nigerians’ bank accounts in the economy, insisting all the pervasive misinformation and propaganda about the new tax laws are nowhere to be found since January 1

Isola Moses | ConsumerConnect

The Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS), for the umpteenth time, has clarified that neither old tax laws nor new tax laws have anything to do with bank customers’ personal or personal accounts.

ConsumerConnect reports Dr. Zacch Adedeji, Executive Chairman of the Nigeria Revenue Service, made this clarification, and related tax issues Tuesday, January 13, 2026, while featuring in “Journalists’ Hangout”, a programme aired on TVC News, and monitored in Lagos.

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Emphasising the need for Nigerians to remain calm in the face of all manner of misinformation and deliberate falsehoods in the public space, Dr. Adedeji insisted that neither the old regime nor the new tax administration system empowers any authority to tax money kept in Nigerians’ bank accounts.

The NRS Executive Chairman’s clarifications came on the heels of recent widespread misinformation, disinformation and attendant anxiety around the tax reforms that became effective January 1, 2026.

Adedeji: Authorities tax only profits or returns, not consumers’ savings

Hitherto, shades of such disinformation causing anxiety over the new-fangled tax regime in the Nigerian economy include claims that transfers, account narrations, or bank customers’ savings balances could trigger automatic deductions from bank accounts by tax authorities.

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Adedeji also asserted: “Whether old tax law or new tax law has nothing to do with your personal bank account, whether you’re a company or you are an individual.

“Don’t forget that tax is a percentage of your profits. So if you have an asset, the asset is not to be taxed. We only tax the profits. We only tax the return.”

He equally dismissed such claims as miscommunication, adding that there is “no law that allows anybody to go into your bank account and tax you because you transfer money or you keep money.”

According to him, personal transfers, gifts, and intra-account movements do not fall under the tax net by default.

The Executive Charmian further said: “If you transfer money from your account to my brother, that is a personal transaction between both of you.

“It has nothing to do with tax authority, whether at the state level or at the Federal level.”

In regard to an idea that banks could be instructed to debit customers’ accounts for tax simply because of the existence of funds or the description attached to a transfer, he explained: “There’s no such provision in any tax act.

“Whether you describe it or you don’t put any description, tax law, both the old law or even the new law that we have now has not given anybody any right to come into your personal account and tax you and instruct the bank to debit you.”

On transition from FIRS to Nigeria Revenue Service

Adedeji commented on the transition from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to the Nigeria Revenue Service as more than a change of name.

He described process as an institutional overhaul designed to simplify compliance and modernise collection.

He said the transition provisions were embedded in the law signed in June, with commencement on January 1, 2026, based on the national tax policy principle that major changes should allow adjustment time for businesses and administrators.

According to him, beyond “rumours” or hearsays in the public place, Nigeria has begun seeing positive responses reflected in market activity and broader sentiment.

Adedeji, therefore, urged Nigerians to assess the new laws “based on facts and data, not on rumours, pointing to the absence of any widespread incident since the commencement date.

Myths, misinformation about new tax laws falling flat, says Chairman

Dismissing such widespread misinformation and outright propaganda being peddled about prior to the commencement of the implementation of the new tax laws January 1 this year, Dr. Adedeji declared: “You can see now that we are on the 13th of January, all those myths…. You can see that those things were nowhere to be found.”

On one of the most debated provisions, he explained that the development levy was not a fresh tax but a consolidation of what he described as multiple earmarked taxes.

The Executive Chairman of NRS also stated: “Before now, we have what we call earmarked taxes. You have education tax, you have police trust fund… which makes it very difficult for businesses to plan,” he said.

“But with this one item, which we call development tax, which is the summation of all these earmarked taxes… it is a consolidation of all the earmarked taxes that we are paying already today into one to simplify compliance.”

He noted that the consolidation would support spending on education, and other development priorities, including security, which he described as fresh additions to the sharing of the levy.

The Executive Chairman further insisted the tax reforms exercise in Nigeria was structured to reduce the burden on poorer Nigerian consumers.

The key expenditure items for low-income households are exempt from transactional taxes in the economy, Adedeji intoned.

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