Withholding tax: Presidential tax reform proposes exemptions of manufacturers, farmers

Kunle Sanni

The Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms, Taiwo Oyedele, has announced that the committee has recommended exempting manufacturers and farmers from withholding tax to alleviate the tax obligations on businesses.

This information was shared at a public forum where the proposed amendments to the National Tax policy were discussed in Lagos.

“We set out the objectives of what we want to do with withholding tax regulation. One of them is to simplify the tax. We want to reduce the burden on businesses, promote competitiveness, equity and ease of compliance and tax avoidance, detect tax evasion and reflect what is happening globally” 

“We are creating an exemption for withholding tax for small businesses and what we have in mind is N50 million. We have reduced the rate for real businesses to as low as two per cent- people producing goods and services because the margins are very small”

“We have created an exemption for manufacturers- so if you are a manufacturer, don’t worry about withholding tax. If you provide input to manufacturers like farmers, don’t worry about withholding tax,” he said.