The chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Mr. Taiwo Oyedele, has disclosed that the Withholding Tax Regulations 2024 has been gazette and will be published today.
Withholding tax (WHT) is an advance payment of income tax deductible at source directly from payments for required transactions.
The fiscal expert gave this hint on Tuesday when he featured on Channels Television’s Independence Day special event with the theme ‘Nigeria’s Challenging Economy: Strategies For Recovery”.
He said: “We have seen some of the processes within government are very slow, the bureaucracy can be better. So, one of the positives is that by going through this process of trying to do a holistic fiscal reform, we have also identified those areas where we can make things easier such that next time when there is an approval by the government almost immediately you can feel the impact.
“I do have some good news. The good news is that the withholding tax regulation has now been gazetted. So, the only reason it hasn’t been published today is because it is public holiday, so first thing tomorrow you will see a copy of the gazette and that provides a lot of relief not just for manufacturers but also every other business in terms of taking away some of the burdens of funding their working capital”, Oyedele added.
Elaborating further on the efforts of the committee to enhance the fiscal system, he maintained that the committee was working to improve the ease of doing business, which is one of the three pillars of its mandate.
He further clarified: “Essentially when you are talking about ease of doing business, it is one of the three pillars of the work of my committee along with so many Nigerians who are members of that committee, putting in everything that they can without asking for anything in return because they love their country and that gives us hope.”
This is even as Oyedele also disclosed that the Economic Stabilization Bill, which the committee had been working over the past few months had been approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC), adding that the Executive Bill will soon be forwarded to the National Assembly to be passed into law.
It would be recalled that The Deduction of Tax at Source (Withholding) Regulations 2024 was announced on July 1 this year by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, as part of the current administration’s economic reform initiatives.
