The Federal Government of Nigeria has banned the collection of taxes in cash and prohibited the use of roadblocks for revenue enforcement, in a decisive move to sanitise the country’s tax administration system.

The new directive forms part of fresh regulations designed to implement Nigeria’s updated tax laws across all levels of government, with a focus on transparency, fairness and economic inclusion.

Executive Secretary of the Joint Revenue Board, Olusegun Adesokan, announced the policy on Tuesday during the signing of the Presumptive Tax Regulations and Guidelines at the Federal Ministry of Finance.

Adesokan said the regulations were introduced to eliminate informal, coercive and fragmented tax practices, particularly at the subnational level, noting that such methods had long undermined public confidence in tax administration.

According to him, the framework introduces clarity and fairness, especially for operators in the commerce and informal sectors, while encouraging a transition to technology-driven payment systems.

He explained that nano and small businesses with annual turnover of ₦12 million or less have been exempted from presumptive tax, while other informal businesses will pay a one per cent tax on turnover under the new structure.

The guidelines, he added, also establish a uniform taxation framework for states and provide a tax identification platform to formally integrate commerce sector operators into the national tax system.

“It bans all forms of cash collection by tax authorities. It also bans the mounting of roadblocks for the collection of taxes,” Adesokan stated.

Also speaking, the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, described the signing as a transition from legislation to practical enforcement of tax reforms.

Edun said the framework was deliberately designed to be simple, clear and fair, with safeguards to protect small businesses, prevent arbitrary tax assessments and expand the tax base without increasing tax rates.

“With the signing of these regulations, we are moving from policy to structured implementation. Our goal is consistency, fairness and protection of small businesses, while supporting sustainable economic growth,” he said.

Chairman of the National Tax Policy Implementation Committee, Joseph Tegbe, also described the development as a shift from legal provisions to operational reality.

Tegbe noted that the reforms are aimed at correcting long-standing distortions in the tax system, replacing arbitrariness with transparency, and better harnessing revenue from the informal sector, which employs over 80 per cent of Nigeria’s workforce but has remained largely outside the formal tax net.