Income of commercial sex workers will be taxed under new laws – Oyedele
Taiwo Oyedele, chairman of the presidential committee on fiscal policy and tax reforms, has said that income earned by commercial sex workers will be subject to tax under Nigeria’s newly gazetted tax laws.
In a video posted on social media (X), Oyedele cited the example of “runs”, a colloquial term in Nigeria for sex work, explaining that the new laws do not differentiate between legally recognised or socially acceptable services and others.
He said: “There is this extreme example… if somebody is doing runs, they go and look for men to sleep with. You know that is a service, they will pay tax on it.”
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He added: “One thing about the tax law, it does not separate between whether what you are doing is legitimate or not, it doesn’t even ask you. It just asks you whether you have an income. Did you get it from rendering a service or providing a good? Then, you pay tax.”
Oyedele also discussed rules on gifts and upkeep payments. He said that money sent to relatives, friends or even strangers, when not in exchange for a service, would be classified as gifts and would not attract tax.
He remarked: “You earn a certain amount of money and you have to send upkeep to your cousin, your brother, even a stranger, it doesn’t really matter. If the amount you are sending is money you are giving to them not because they have done something for you, then it is a gift. We call it a non-exchange transaction. That is not taxable.”
He further explained that while the giver may have paid tax on their income, recipients of such gifts are not liable to additional tax.
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The new tax reforms were signed into law on June 26 by President Bola Tinubu. They include the Nigeria Tax Act, the Nigeria Tax Administration Act, the Nigeria Revenue Service (Establishment) Act, and the Joint Revenue Board (Establishment) Act.
These law changes have been gazetted and are set to take effect from January 1, 2026.
Oyedele’s comments signal that the government intends a very broad tax base, encompassing diverse forms of service income.
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