Nigeria Planning to Present Law to Tax Crypto by September: Report

• Nigeria’s tax-collection authority, FIRS, told lawmakers it intends to introduce a bill to tax crypto to parliament by September.

• “We just have to plan to regulate” crypto “in such a way that it is not injurious to the economic development of Nigeria,” a report cited a senior official as saying.

Nigeria’s Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) plans to present a bill for taxing the crypto industry for approval by parliament by September, news outlet Punch Nigeria reported on Saturday.

Zacch Adedeji, executive chairman of the tax collection agency, revealed the plan at a meeting with the National Assembly’s Senate and House Committee on Finances.

“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.

Some authorities have claimed crypto was in part responsible for the country’s currency, the naira, sinking against the dollar for more than a year. Central bank Governor Olayemi Cardoso also alleged that crypto exchange Binance allowed $26 billion of funds to leave the country untraceably last year, hitting tax revenues and triggering a series of events that led to the arrest of Binance executive Tigran Gambaryan.

Adedeji said that other places in the world were legislating to tax too.

“… 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,” he said, according to the report.

Last month, crypto exchange KuCoin said it was starting to collect VAT on transaction fees for Nigerian users.