The Chairman, Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, has said that the country’s haulage and logistics industry would be one of the major beneficiaries of the tax reforms being put in place.
Oyedele said this on Thursday at the Haulage & Logistics Magazine Annual Conference & Exhibition held in Lagos under the theme, ‘Tax Reforms from Policy to Practice: Challenges and Opportunities For the Nigerian Haulage Industry.’
The PUNCH reports that in June 2025, President Bola Tinubu signed four tax reform bills into law: the Nigeria Tax Act, the Nigeria Tax Administration Act, the Nigeria Revenue Service Act, and the Joint Revenue Board Act, collectively referred to as “the Acts”.
Delivering his keynote, Oyedele said that the new system is an intentional, structured reform designed to stabilise the economy and translate macroeconomic gains into micro-level relief, effectively moving Nigeria away from its current uncompetitive tax structure.
He explained, “Now, a critical aspect of this reform is the elimination of several taxes, multiple taxation, and illegal levies, which continue to inflate the cost of transportation of goods in our country.
There is no doubt that the haulage and logistics industry in Nigeria stands to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of this tax reform in view of the fact that the reform intends to tackle headlong the issue of multiple taxation.
“Officially, there are over 60 taxes and levies that businesses pay in Nigeria. Officially, even that does not make sense. By the time you add unofficial to it, it is more than 200 (taxes) in a country where they want to create employment. Some of those nuisance levies and taxes are even in our constitution.”
He added that efforts were being made to remove some of the nuisance taxes from the constitution.
Oyedele added that the tax reforms have outlawed road extortion.
“The other thing we have done with this tax harmonisation is to outlaw physical barriers for tax collection. Why do we have to put wood on the road with nails? We are now saying under these reforms nobody should have to physically provide any hindrance, roadblock, impediment because they want to collect tax,” he said. “No one should collect taxes in cash because that cash is not even getting to the government.”
Providing technology as a substitute for tax collection, he said, “If the government decides that if you are a big transport company, your vehicle should pay N100,000. We ask you to pay and say madam transporter or Mr transporter you have up until the end of March for example, I’m not saying that’s what is in the law, to pay for the year, if by March you have not and you can even pay in instalment the day you find N5,000 go and pay you find N10,000, pay if you have not finished paying by the end of March, you know I can collect that money without showing up.
“I’m trying to demonstrate to you that we are in 2025. It’s called the age of technology. It is embarrassing as a country to go and put wood with nails on the road and be fighting people.”
The tax committee chairman noted that a tax ombudsman will be set up to protect operators from harassment and illegal levies.
“The office is designed to resolve issues quickly, typically within 24 to 48 hours, with a maximum resolution time of 14 days at no cost to the taxpayer,” he said.
Oyedele emphasised that transporters must seek knowledge of the reforms and actively participate to reap the benefits, for instance, small operators must register their businesses with the Corporate Affairs Commission to qualify for the zero per cent Corporate Income Tax. Furthermore, transporters are urged to overcome the habit of paying cash and avoiding record-keeping, as documentary evidence and using bank transfers are necessary to claim VAT refunds and defend themselves against presumptive tax assessments.
Earlier, the convener of the conference, Alfred Okugbeni, in his opening remarks, reiterated that the haulage sector was one impacted by the tax reforms.
He affirmed that “A critical aspect of the reform is the elimination of several taxes, multiple taxation, and illegal levies which continue to inflate the cost of transporting goods in our country. If you look at the inflation figures critically, food inflation is a major driver of inflation in Nigeria. And if you look at food inflation, transportation is a major driver. The reason transportation is a major driver is that a lot of taxes happen along the way. There is a need to address this now, as we have the opportunity to do so urgently before the year ends and implementation begins. In my estimation, the tax reform we have today is one of the groundbreaking initiatives of this present administration. It shows that we are beginning to take governance seriously.
“For a long time, nobody cared whether anyone paid tax or not. But now it’s beginning to show that payment and collection of taxes are being taken seriously by the government, and you and I also need to take it seriously. The reason is that fiscal policies and tax administration represent the economic and social contract between the government and the public. With this current tax reform and the expected increase in tax debt, not tax rate, tax debt, the expectation is that citizens will begin to demand accountability from government at all levels. You and I will begin to ask questions about why infrastructure decay still exists, because we are now paying.
“There is no doubt that the haulage and logistics industry in Nigeria stands to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of this tax reform, in view of the fact that the reform intends to tackle headlong the very business-unfriendly issues of multiple taxation. It is a known fact that the industry has suffered grossly from the issue of multiple taxation on the highways. It is only in Nigeria that nobody knows the number of levies, emblems, stickers, and permits required to operate transportation efficiently.”
