Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja

President Muhammadu Buhari has signed into law the Finance Bill, 2019.

Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, in a statement, said the assent follows its passage by the National Assembly and subsequent forwarding by the legislature to the President for assent.

President Buhari had while presenting the 2020 Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly presented the Finance Bill and said: “This Finance Bill has five strategic objectives, in terms of achieving incremental, but necessary, changes to our fiscal laws.

“These objectives are; Promoting fiscal equity by mitigating instances of regressive taxation; Reforming domestic tax laws to align with global best practices; Introducing tax incentives for investments in infrastructure and capital markets; Supporting Micro, Small and Medium-sized businesses in line with our Ease of Doing Business Reforms; and Raising Revenues for Government.

“The draft Finance Bill proposes an increase of the VAT rate from five per cent to 7.5 per cent, as such, the 2020 Appropriation Bill is based on this new VAT rate,” he had added.

“With the assent, there will be more revenue to finance key government projects especially in the areas of health, education and critical infrastructure,” Adesina said in the statement.

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Original article follows

President Muhammadu Buhari has signed into law the Finance Bill, 2019. Buhari personally announced this through his verified Twitter handle, @MBuhari. The Finance Bill, 2019 (the Bill), presented by President Muhammadu Buhari alongside the 2020 Appropriation Bill to a joint session of the National Assembly on 8 October 2019, was passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

The law seeks to amend the Petroleum Profit Tax Act, Customs and Excise Tariff Act, Company Income Tax Act, Personal Income Tax Act, Value Added Tax, Stamp Duties Act and the Capital Gains Tax.

With the Finance Law, Nigerians who want to open or maintain accounts with the Deposit Money Bank will not have to provide their Tax Identification Number to do so.

The Federal Government has also raised the threshold from which stamp duty will be charged for online transactions from the current N1,000 to N10,000.