The Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) has identified low-income Nigerians as the primary beneficiaries of the recently introduced tax reforms by President Bola Tinubu.
In an interview aired on Sunday, the 4th of January, 2026, on Arise Television, the Executive Chairman of the NRS, Zacchaeus Adedeji, explained that the reforms were designed to ease the burden on the poor rather than increase taxation.
According to Adedeji, the government is not imposing additional taxes, noting that with the numerous exemptions built into the new law, more than 95 per cent of poor Nigerians are completely exempt from paying taxes.
He emphasised that the removal of Value Added Tax (VAT) on food items significantly favours low-income earners, as food accounts for about 90 per cent of their disposable income.
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“We remove VAT totally from those ones. The same thing on transportation, which is also in the poor.
“So if you look at the total and the net benefit, the poor are the most beneficiary of this tax reform,” he said.