The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission has said inflows into the Federation Account rose to N23.06 trillion in the first 10 months of 2025, attributing the increase to fiscal reforms, stronger audits and improved coordination among revenue agencies.
The Chairman of the commission, Mohammed Shehu, disclosed this on Monday in Abuja while delivering his keynote address at a two-day National Stakeholders’ Discourse on Enhancing Fiscal Efficiency and Revenue Growth under the Nigeria Tax Act, 2025.
Shehu said, “The ten months accruals into the Federation Account in the period January to October, 2025 was N23,058,248,707,725.50 only,” describing the figure as evidence of growing fiscal discipline and improved revenue mobilisation.
According to him, the surge in inflows marked a steady improvement over previous years, with total gross accruals standing at N11.93tn in 2023 and N21.43tn in 2024.
He explained that the growth was driven by “fiscal reforms, tracking and coordination among revenue agencies, stronger audits, digital tracking, and fiscal reforms,” noting that the measures had expanded the revenue pool available for distribution to the Federal, State and Local Governments.
Shehu said the trend reflected progress towards a more resilient and sustainable public finance system with reduced dependence on oil earnings, adding that volatile crude prices had historically exposed the country to boom-and-bust revenue cycles that undermined fiscal stability and long-term planning.
“The Nigerian economy had suffered from boom-bust cycles driven by volatile oil prices, creating unpredictable revenue streams that undermine long-term planning and fiscal stability,” he said.
The RMAFC chairman said the Nigeria Tax Act, 2025, which will take effect on January 1, 2026, was designed to address these structural weaknesses by harmonising previously fragmented tax laws into a single statute.
He said the Act would eliminate duplication and obsolete provisions, reduce compliance burdens for taxpayers and enhance the ease of doing business across the country.
“The Nigeria Tax Act, 2025, has not only harmonised the hitherto Nigeria’s fragmented tax laws into a single statute, but it has also reduced or eliminated duplication and obsolete provisions while enhancing ease of doing business,” Shehu stated.
He added that the reforms would create a more coherent and predictable fiscal environment while eliminating regional differences in tax administration.
Shehu also linked the improving revenue profile to broader macroeconomic developments under the current administration, citing declining inflation and relative stability in the foreign exchange market.
He said inflation had dropped consecutively over four months, from 21.88 per cent in July to 16.05 per cent in October, while the naira exchange rate strengthened from N1,534 to the dollar in July to N1,428 in October.
According to him, the economy continues to grow, driven largely by the services and non-oil sectors, even though oil still accounts for over 90 per cent of export earnings while contributing less than 10 per cent to gross domestic product.
On the role of the commission, Shehu said RMAFC would intensify monitoring of revenue collections and disbursements from the Federation Account through enhanced oversight, forensic audits and stronger collaboration with subnational governments on non-oil revenue mobilisation.
Also speaking at the event, the Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Prof. Taiwo Oyedele, said the Nigeria Tax Act, 2025, was designed to correct decades of structural weaknesses in the country’s tax system and promote fairness, efficiency and economic growth.
Oyedele said Nigeria’s tax system had become overly complex and punitive, stressing that incremental fixes were no longer sufficient.
“These reforms should have been done 20 or 30 years ago. Things got so bad with our tax system that incremental fixing would no longer solve the problem. We needed a transformation,” he said.
He explained that the reforms repealed major existing tax laws and replaced them with new ones to stop what he described as “taxing poverty, capital and investments” using outdated statutes inherited from the colonial era.
According to him, the core objectives of the reforms include fairness, harmonisation, ease of doing business, transparency in the use of tax revenues and overall economic development.
Oyedele said the committee deliberately focused on efficiency rather than introducing new taxes, warning that the proliferation of levies across tiers of government had created leakages, corruption and heavy burdens on small businesses and vulnerable citizens.
