Can a fifth pillar complete Nigeria’s tax architecture?

By Bidemi Daniel Olumide

Nigeria’s tax reform journey in 2025 and 2026 has been genuinely remarkable. The Nigeria Tax Act 2025 and the Nigeria Tax Administration Act 2025 have ushered in the most comprehensive overhaul of the country’s tax laws in decades. The National Revenue Service (NRS) is now operational. Rev360 has become the platform for tax filing, assessment and self-service compliance, while the e-invoicing mandate is already taking effect.

For perhaps the first time in Nigeria’s fiscal history, government has invested in building digital tax infrastructure at scale and with evident commitment. Yet, as these reforms begin to reshape tax administration, an important question remains: can Nigeria’s tax architecture deliver its full potential without stronger interconnection between government systems and the private sector platforms where businesses actually operate?

This question goes to the heart of the next phase of Nigeria’s tax modernisation. The country has laid an important foundation through digital identity, payment infrastructure, tax administration platforms and e-invoicing. These achievements are significant and deserve recognition. But the strength of any digital architecture lies not only in the systems it creates but also in the extent to which those systems communicate with one another. Infrastructure without interconnection is incomplete, and that gap may ultimately determine whether Nigeria’s tax reforms realise their full promise.

Nigeria’s modern tax architecture now rests on four operational pillars. The first is Digital Identity, with the integration of the National Identification Number (NIN) and the Bank Verification Number (BVN) into tax administration, making the Tax Identification Number a meaningful and verifiable anchor. The second is the Payment Rail, with the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS) and the commercial banking system providing the foundation for auditable and verified tax remittances. The third is Rev360, the NRS platform for tax filing, assessment and self-service compliance. The fourth is e-Invoicing, which requires businesses above the prescribed turnover threshold to submit invoices in real time for validation.

Each of these pillars represents a genuine policy achievement. They were not built easily, and together they provide the foundation upon which the next phase of reform will stand. Yet, despite their individual strengths, they share a common limitation. They do not systematically communicate with one another as required. More importantly, they do not communicate with the private-sector platforms where Nigerian businesses actually operate. In the most consequential sense, they remain islands.

The implications of this disconnect become clearer when viewed from the perspective of an ordinary business. A small business owner may use payroll software to pay staff, accounting software to manage expenses and an enterprise platform to run daily operations. Yet these systems often have no validated connection to Rev360 and cannot generate compliant e-invoices automatically. At the end of every reporting cycle, business records must still be exported, reformatted and manually uploaded to government portals, with businesses hoping the figures reconcile correctly and submissions register successfully. Errors accumulate, deadlines are missed and the experience reinforces the perception that tax compliance is cumbersome and, where possible, avoidable.

This is not necessarily a failure of government platforms, nor is it a failure of taxpayers. It is a failure of architecture. Nigeria has built the highway but has yet to build enough on-ramps connecting government infrastructure with the digital systems businesses already use. Every manually re-entered invoice introduces another data integrity risk. Every disconnected platform increases compliance costs.

Every point of friction creates another opportunity for revenue leakage.

The implications extend beyond the experience of individual businesses. Nigeria’s ambition to raise its tax-to-GDP ratio from about 13.5 per cent to above 18 per cent is unlikely to be realised through government infrastructure alone. The four existing pillars are necessary, but they may not be sufficient unless the private sector becomes fully integrated into the architecture. Connection requires more than technology. It requires a framework.

This is where the case for a fifth pillar begins. Rather than creating another government platform, the proposal is for an API-led national tax ecosystem that allows accredited private-sector platforms—including payroll software, accounting packages, enterprise resource planning systems, fintechs and government revenue administration platforms—to connect securely with NRS infrastructure. Under such an arrangement, taxpayers would no longer need to leave their business systems to interact separately with government portals. Tax compliance would become an automatic output of ordinary business operations rather than an additional administrative burden layered on top of them.

The technology required to support such connectivity already exists. An application programming interface, or API, is simply a secure and structured means by which software systems communicate with one another. The more important question is whether Nigeria’s regulatory architecture is ready to govern those connections through clear standards, accreditation and oversight. In that sense, the proposed fifth pillar is not another technology platform. It is the policy framework that enables government and private-sector systems to function as one national ecosystem.

Nigeria’s own regulatory experience provides a useful precedent. In 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission introduced the Accelerated Regulatory Incubation Programme (ARIP), establishing Nigeria’s first formal regulatory sandbox for capital market technology. The SEC did not build innovative platforms itself. Instead, it created the framework that allowed those platforms to develop under regulatory supervision before progressing to full registration. The framework encouraged innovation while maintaining public confidence and regulatory discipline. It demonstrated that regulators can create the conditions for innovation without becoming the innovators.

The Joint Tax Board, working with the National Revenue Service and the State Internal Revenue Services, is similarly positioned to establish a Tax Technology Accreditation Framework that enables private-sector platforms to connect securely to national tax infrastructure through validated APIs. The NRS already operates elements of this model through the accreditation of Access Point Providers and Systems Integrators under the e-invoicing framework. Expanding that approach would build upon an existing regulatory foundation rather than creating an entirely new system.

Several practical steps could advance this agenda. Publishing open and well-documented API standards for Rev360 and other NRS infrastructure would establish a common technical framework for connectivity. Expanding the existing accreditation framework into a broader Tax API Access Point Programme would extend secure integration across the tax compliance value chain.

Requiring accredited platforms to maintain internationally recognised information security standards and active registration under Nigeria’s data protection framework would strengthen taxpayer confidence in the protection of personal and financial information. Bringing together the Joint Tax Board, the National Revenue Service, the Federal Inland Revenue Service, the Nigeria Data Protection Commission and accredited private-sector platforms within a technical working group would provide an opportunity to develop the framework collaboratively.

The private sector has already demonstrated that much of the required capability exists. Nigerian tax technology companies have spent years developing platforms for revenue administration, assessments, collections, receipting and enforcement while meeting recognised information security and data protection standards. The conversation is therefore no longer about whether the technology can be built.

It is about establishing the regulatory framework that allows existing capabilities to connect seamlessly with national tax infrastructure.

The Nigeria Tax Act 2025, the Nigeria Tax Administration Act 2025, the National Revenue Service and the e-invoicing mandate represent the culmination of years of legislative advocacy and administrative reform. They have established a foundation that previous generations of Nigerian tax administrators could scarcely have imagined. The return on that investment, however, will depend on what happens next.

Perhaps the next stage of Nigeria’s tax reform is not the construction of another platform but the completion of the architecture already in place. The first four pillars have established the foundation of a modern tax administration system. The challenge now is whether those pillars can function not as separate structures but as parts of a connected national ecosystem. Infrastructure without interconnection remains incomplete.

If government and the private sector can build that missing bridge through secure, governed and standardised connectivity, every investment made in the first four pillars will be better positioned to deliver its full value. The question, therefore, is no longer whether Nigeria has built the infrastructure. It is whether the country is ready to build the connections that allow that infrastructure to realise its full potential.