Stakeholders in Nigeria’s housing sector have renewed calls for the reduction of multiple taxes, warning that the current system is stifling private sector growth and discouraging property development, okay.ng reports.
At a recent workshop in Ogun State themed “The impact of emerging technologies on urban and regional planning: challenges and opportunities,” Bisi Adedire, President of the Association of Town Planning Consultants of Nigeria, highlighted the burden of multiple levies on land transactions. “While the levies are necessary to enhance the capacity of the government to provide essential services to drive development, the burden hurts property developers, especially when they’re compelled to pay everything upfront while construction has not started on their plots of land. The Federal Government should look into it and adopt a system that would be beneficial to all stakeholders,” he stated.
Estate surveyor Olorunyomi Alatise echoed these concerns, noting that the multiplicity of taxes discourages property regularisation. “By the time they itemise the different taxes you are to pay, you find out that it is a lot for someone that just acquired a property,” he said.
Meanwhile, Lagos State’s Permanent Secretary for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Oluwole Sotire, acknowledged the need for citizens to pay taxes but emphasized the importance of stakeholder involvement in planning and governance.
Recent tax reforms introduced by the Tinubu administration aim to harmonise taxes and reduce upfront burdens for developers, a move experts say could redirect funds towards actual property development and address Nigeria’s housing deficit.
