Nigeria’s FIRS Proposes Bill to Tax Crypto Firms

Zacch Adedeji, the executive chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), has proposed a bill to tax crypto firms in Nigeria. The bill was part of the organization’s plan to ensure proper regulation of the sector.

In a bill presented to the National Assembly on Saturday, Adedeji sought the lawmakers’ support to impose a financial levy on crypto industries operating in the country. The FIRS boss noted that the tax collector was proposing to present the bill by September.

“The plan first is to have a law that regulates it, and that is why you see that we are here with the legislature, which will be the base of charging. And that is done in any other place in the world when you have this innovation or system, so you just have to get ready for it because you can’t go away from it,” Adedeji said.

Zacch Seeks to Tax Crypto Firms in Nigeria

Zacch’s first plan is to design a system regulating all crypto firms nationwide. The FIRS chairman stated that since most other countries are adopting crypto, the sector is not going away soon.

Hence, Adedeji proposed that Nigeria set up legal structures to regulate the sector. One way that the FIRS boss proposed to pursue this undertaking was to tax crypto firms operating in the country.

“Today, we cannot run away from cryptocurrency, but as we stand today, there is no law anywhere in Nigeria that regulates cryptocurrency. We cannot run away from it,” Zacch stated.

Nigeria seems to have started mandating that crypto exchanges operating in the country pay taxes. Trading platform KuCoin announced to Nigerian users on June 3 that it would begin adding a value-added tax of 7.5% on each transaction made on the exchange.

The crypto sector has suffered some setbacks in Nigeria. The Nigerian Central Bank (CBN) banned the use of cryptocurrencies in 2021, causing many exchanges to stop users based in the country from funding their accounts directly from banks.

Earlier in this year, Nigeria sued leading crypto exchange Binance, alleging that it had a hand in the free fall of the naira’s value against the dollar. To this day, Binance executive Tigran Gambaryani is still in the custody of Nigeria’s law enforcement agency.