Capital Gains, Big Pains?
The Big Picture: Nigeria just swapped its flat 10 % capital gains tax for a progressive rate that tops out at 30 %, and corporate boardrooms are scrambling to redo their spreadsheets.
The Details: The new regime, tucked inside the Nigeria Tax Act 2025, kicks in on 1 January 2026 and slaps the top 30 % rate on gains above set thresholds,₦150 million for share disposals and ₦10 million for other assets, including digital tokens. Small investors breathe easy: anything below those marks stays tax-free, and reinvesting proceeds at home earns a pass as well, BusinessDay reports (link).
But not everyone’s cheering. The reform “could chill large-ticket deals without wider reliefs,” warns a commentator in The Nation (link).
Why It Matters: The Tinubu administration is betting that a fairer, stair-step CGT will boost non-oil revenue without hammering everyday savers. Yet tax pros say corporates might hunt for loopholes, or simply park capital elsewhere, if relief for reinvestment stays limited. As one analyst told BusinessDay, “Boards are already scenario-planning their escape routes.”
Around the Tax World
• Unified playbook, finally. Four new Acts weld federal, state, and local rules into one transparent framework, requiring every taxpayer, non-residents included, to grab a Tax ID (Punch).
• Personal relief. Workers earning below ₦800,000 are now off the personal income-tax hook, while SMEs under ₦100 million turnover get extra breathing room (Economic Confidential).
• Record haul. The former FIRS (now Nigeria Revenue Service) says collections hit ₦47.39 trillion in two years, 15 % above target, thanks to digital audits and e-filing (Punch).
• Cost-of-compliance pain. A new survey flags bank charges and multiple overlapping levies as the top headaches for businesses, urging a tax-rationalisation push (ThisDay).
• Budget kudos. Civil-society groups applauded Budget Office DG Ben Yakubu after 81 % of capital funds were reportedly utilised, signalling improved fiscal transparency (The Nation).
• Big-picture plea. A PRNigeria op-ed calls for deeper collaboration among tax bodies to plug leaks as oil revenue wanes (PRNigeria).
• Macro mood. The Guardian says Tinubu’s broader economic tweaks,exchange-rate stabilisation and subsidy removals are nudging the country “towards prosperity” through better tax compliance (Guardian).
Prime Number
₦47.39 trillion, the tax take the NRS logged from Oct 2023 to Sept 2025, eclipsing its goal by 15 % (Punch).
Looking Ahead
All eyes now turn to the Joint Revenue Board, which must publish granular CGT guidelines before the 2026 go-live. In the meantime, corporates have a few months to map those “escape routes.”