BY: AYO AGBEOLUWAYE 
As the Nigeria Tax reforms law continues to take the centre stage of discussion, legal luminaries and tax experts have continued to commend the law as timely and gateway to financial prosperity and greater economic pathways for the country.
They made their views known at the 2026 Lagos State Professorial Chair in Tax and fiscal matters Trust Fund with the theme: Navigating Nigeria’s Tax reforms; implications for fiscal federalism and state autonomy organized by the Department of Commercial and industrial Law, University of Lagos.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu represented by the Chairman, Lagos State Internal Revenue Service Mr. Hamza Subair stressed argued that taxes remains the live blood of any economic prosperity aimed to fund critical sectors of the economy like health care, education and infrastructure.Mr. Subair stressed that Nigeria had in the past struggled with the tax system that is complex, narrow and unfair, maintaining that many Nigerians are ignorant of their responsibilities in the tax system noting that the new tax system address such. “We speak on tax reforms, we speak at chances of opening laws for economic prosperity. For many years, Nigeria has struggled with a difficult tax system where many do not understand what they owe, who they should pay to and why they should pay at all. ” This actions has led to low compliance, thereby bringing government revenue to a low, forcing excessive borrowing and limiting governments ability to invest in development and the tax reforms law is aimed at addressing this.”
In his lecture, the chair of the 2026 Lagos state professorial chair in tax and fiscal matters and the Dean, faculty of Law, Professor Abiola Sanni(SAN) welcomed the Tax reforms law noting that the overall aim is to unify the Nigerian tax law while ensuring low income earners and businesses are not overburden with taxes.
He however maintained that there are were areas which needed to be amended amongst which is the federal government collection of state taxes, taxes structure of states designed by federal government, but overall praising the tax regime and dismissed speculation for the extension for the take off of the tax law. “So what we have at the moment is the most important revenue sources for the state which are established under the federal structure and income; that is income tax, stamp duties and capital gains. The implications is that they cannot continue to exercise much power to deal with any aspect of the law that may be inefficient until the federal government acts”.  “So there’s a dislocation there because in areas where they have power to actually exercise their own jurisdiction, they are not doing much.” He said ” there’s a need to recognize that the federal government will not put state taxes in order because it has no power over them, the state have to do it by themselves. So all this reforms now pinpoint that the average taxpayer may not be addressed, so there’s an extent at which the federal intervention or initiatives can address local issues” he noted .In their submission the Pro-Chancellor, University of Lagos Chief Wole Olaonipekun(SAN) and the Lagos state Commissioner for tertiary Education, Mr. Tolani Sule both advocates for a fiscal federalism that will be prudent in their spendings and commended the tax law highlightening the need for strong collaboration between institutions of learning and Government policies assuring Nigerians of improved economic output.

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