Nigeria’s FIRS Announces Plan to Present Crypto Taxation Bill to Parliament

ABUJA (MarketsXplora) – Nigeria’s tax collection agency, the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), is set to present a bill for taxing the cryptocurrency industry to the country’s parliament by September, according to a report by Punch Nigeria.

Zacch Adedeji, the executive chairman of FIRS, revealed the agency’s plan during a meeting with the National Assembly’s Senate and House Committee on Finances. Adedeji stated that the primary goal is to have the necessary legal framework in place to regulate and tax the crypto sector.

“The plan first is to have the law that regulates it, and that is why you see that we are here with the legislature, which will be the base of charging,” Adedeji said.

The move comes amid concerns from some authorities that the use of cryptocurrencies has contributed to the depreciation of Nigeria’s currency, the naira, against the US dollar for over a year. Central Bank Governor Olayemi Cardoso has even alleged that the crypto exchange Binance allowed $26 billion in funds to leave the country untraceably last year, negatively impacting tax revenues and leading to the arrest of a Binance executive.

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Adedeji acknowledged that other countries around the world are also taking steps to tax the crypto industry, stating, “… so you just have to get ready for it because you can’t go away from it. So we just have to plan to regulate it in such a way that it is not injurious to the economic development of Nigeria.”

This development follows last month’s announcement by cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin that it had started collecting value-added tax (VAT) on transaction fees for its Nigerian users.