The Lead Story
NGOs: Still Tax-Free, But Now Under The Microscope
The nonprofit corner of Nigeria’s economy just got a regulatory tune-up. A new analysis of the 2025 Tax Reform Acts finds that while charities keep their coveted exemptions, they’ll have to jump through far more hoops to keep them, The Nigeria Lawyer reports.
The reforms reaffirm carve-outs from Companies Income Tax, Capital Gains Tax, and VAT, but layer on stricter rules: mandatory registration, annual returns, withholding-tax deductions on payments, and full disclosure of any tax-planning schemes. Penalties for slacking off? Substantially higher.
“NGOs can’t treat these filings as optional anymore,” the paper notes, warning that failure to comply could now be costlier than many grants they chase. Researchers also flagged persistent headaches, thin tax literacy, patchy digital infrastructure, and the ever-present risk of corruption.
Why it matters: Nigeria hosts an estimated 40,000 NGOs. Tighter oversight aims to boost transparency and, as the study puts it, “rebuild trust in the tax system.” But civil-society groups worry that red tape could divert scarce resources from frontline work.
Around the Tax World
• Fuel-surcharge freak-out? Not so fast. Claims of a brand-new 5% levy on petrol were shot down by Taiwo Oyedele, who reminded citizens that the fee has existed since 2007 and isn’t automatically triggered on 1 Jan 2026 (Africa Check).
• Brewers bubble over proposed tax stamps. Nigerian Breweries says adding excise stamps will “worsen inflation” and hit local producers hard, urging the government to scrap the plan (Guardian).
• Workers vs. Daewoo. Plant operators petitioned the EFCC to probe three years of allegedly unremitted PAYE taxes by Daewoo Engineering & Construction Nigeria (The Whistler).
• Tax Clinic, round two. FIRS (Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Act, 2025) will host its next Emerging Taxpayers’ Clinic in Abuja on 28 Oct, promising plain-English answers on the switch to the new Nigeria Revenue Service (Guardian).
• CGT holiday for almost everyone. The new rules, detailed in the Nigeria Tax Act, 2025, will exempt about 99% of individual investors from Capital Gains Tax, provided gains stay under ₦10 million or are reinvested in local shares (The Nation).
• Cabinet chatter. Multiple outlets say President Tinubu is lining up reform czar Taiwo Oyedele for the Finance Minister’s seat, though no official word yet (Abuja City Journal).
Tax Stat of the Day
99%, the share of individual investors shielded from Capital Gains Tax under thresholds set in the 2025 reforms.
Looking Ahead
All eyes now turn to 1 Jan 2026, when most reform provisions, including the clarified fuel levy and CGT tweaks, kick in. Meanwhile, SMEs may want to snag a seat at the FIRS clinic on 28 Oct to avoid New Year’s tax surprises.