Eighteen state houses of assembly have domesticated the model harmonised taxes and levies law as Nigeria’s tax reforms reduced the number of levies administered by states and local governments from more than 50 to nine, the Joint Revenue Board (JRB) has said.
The apex body for revenue administration in Nigeria made the disclosure during its 160th meeting, themed “One Year of Reform: Assessing Progress and Addressing Challenges”, held on September 1–2, 2026 in Kaduna State.
According to the JRB, the harmonised law has abolished cash collection and the mounting of roadblocks for revenue collection, marking a significant success in the harmonisation of taxes and levies by subnational authorities.
The executive secretary of the JRB, Olusegun Adesokan, said the reform had also reduced the tax burden on low-income earners, eliminated multiple nuisance taxes and provided reliefs for micro-scale businesses.
“Addressing the misconception that the tax reform has increased taxes, the reform has rather reduced tax burden on low-income earners, eliminated multiple nuisance taxes while providing reliefs for low income-earners and micro-scale businesses,” Adesokan said.
He noted that the ultimate measure of the reform’s success would be improved revenue mobilisation, greater compliance, a better taxpayer experience and stronger contribution to national development.
The chairman of the JRB, Dr Zacch Adedeji, represented by the executive director, Finance and Corporate Services, Nigeria Revenue Service, Muhammad L. Abubakar, said the meeting was a call on the board to take stock of progress, remediate gaps and confront emerging challenges.
“While encouraging progress has been recorded in institutional reform, digitalisation, data integration, harmonisation and collaboration, the ultimate measure of success of the reform must be improved revenue mobilisation, greater compliance, a better taxpayer experience and stronger contribution to national development,” he said.
The host, Kaduna State governor, Senator Uba Sani, said the tax reform had expanded opportunities for domestic resource mobilisation and stressed that deeper benefits would come from building institutions to sustain the gains and command taxpayers’ confidence.
“The objective of the reform should not be simply to collect revenue; it should be to build a tax system in which compliance becomes easier, enforcement becomes more intelligent and voluntary compliance becomes a norm,” Governor Sani said.
He urged the JRB to use the meeting to identify bottlenecks impeding revenue collection, institutional weaknesses creating friction between revenue authorities, and opportunities for technology to deliver greater efficiency in revenue administration.
Earlier, the outgoing executive chairman of the Kaduna State Internal Revenue Service, Jerry Adams, said tax compliance in the state had risen from about 35 per cent to 65 per cent in the last three years under Governor Sani.
He attributed the improvement to increased taxpayers’ confidence in the governor’s performance, citing life-touching projects in health, agriculture, education and infrastructure.
The JRB, composed of 38 revenue authorities including the Nigeria Revenue Service, the 36 states and the FCT Internal Revenue Services, as well as key federal agencies and professional bodies, held its second meeting of 2026 in Kaduna.
Follow the story
