Tax Reforms Spur 10,000 Daily Business Registrations – Oyedele

Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, has said the Federal Government’s tax reforms are encouraging business formalisation, disclosing that an average of 10,000 informal businesses are applying for registration with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) every day.

Speaking at the BusinessDay 14th Annual CEO Forum in Lagos, Oyedele said the reforms were intentionally designed to encourage formalisation as part of efforts to transform macroeconomic stability into shared prosperity.

“By the way, with the new tax reforms, one of the things we did intentionally was ask: How do we encourage formalization?” he said.

According to him, the outcome has exceeded expectations. “The results are not only impressive; they’re much better than anything we had anticipated.

The Corporate Affairs Commission said to us a couple of months ago that whatever we did, they don’t know. But what they know is that they had an average of 10,000 informal businesses applying to register with the CAC every single day. 10,000.”

Oyedele said the government would leverage the growing number of registered businesses by helping them grow.

“Now, if we leverage on that and help those businesses because now they’ve been legally exempted from taxes, why run away? If we help them build skills, access affordable capital, management skills, opportunities, and they grow, not only is it that they will stimulate growth and shared prosperity, we’ll better capture the value they add to the economy.”

The minister said the government’s revenue mobilisation agenda is focused on widening the tax net, simplifying compliance and leveraging technology.

“Our revenue mobilization agenda is not about raising tax rates to punish success. No. No. It is about widening the tax net, simplifying compliance, and leveraging technology. Our landmark tax reforms are designed to eliminate multiple taxation and drastically reduce compliance costs. This is not merely tax reform; it is a fiscal reset necessary for shared prosperity.”

He said prosperity would only be meaningful if it is shared, noting that the government is deliberately investing in human capital, vocational training and skills development, while supporting small and medium-sized enterprises.

“We are supporting small and medium-sized enterprises not as an act of charity—because it is not—but because they are the true engines of job creation and grassroots innovation.”

Oyedele said the government’s focus is to ensure that businesses formalise, grow and contribute to shared prosperity, adding that the country must move from stability to investment, productivity, job creation and rising real incomes.

“Nigeria has completed the grueling foundational work of restoring macroeconomic stability. Our shared responsibility now is to convert that stability into investment, convert investment into productivity, convert productivity into jobs, and jobs into rising real incomes for every Nigerian.”