FIRS working on executive bill to regulate crypto

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) says an executive bill which seeks to restructure revenue administration in Nigeria, including regulation of the cryptocurrency industry, is being drafted for transmission to the national assembly.

Zacch Adedeji, FIRS chairman, spoke on Saturday at a stakeholders’ engagement with a joint committee of the national assembly in Lagos.
According to a statement by Dare Adekanmbi, special adviser on media to Adedeji, the FIRS chairman said the objectives of the bill include simplifying tax laws, harmonising collection of revenue as well as seeking the replacement of obsolete tax laws with new ones in line with the current economic realities.

“By the special grace of the Almighty God, we will bring a bill for a law to overhaul the whole process of revenue administration in Nigeria. Part of what we intend to achieve with this is to harmonise revenue collection, making tax laws very simple to understand and to be in tune with our current realities,” he said.

“For example, the Stamp Duty Act was made in 1939 when there was no internet connectivity or any of the features of modern society as we have it now. Even in 1939, states and local government councils had not been created. So, we need to bring that law up to date. This is one of the reasons President Bola Tinubu set up the Taiwo Oyedele-led fiscal policy and tax reform committee to look into all these laws and make recommendations.

Today, we cannot run away from the cryptocurrency ecosystem because it is the in-thing.  But as it stands in Nigeria today, there is no law that regulates cryptocurrency operations. We need a law that regulates that area of our economy. This is why we are having this engagement with the legislators. We will regulate it in a way that is not injurious to the economic development of Nigeria.
These are some of the things we are bringing together in an executive bill to overhaul revenue administration for the development of the country.”