Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Taiwo Oyedele, has said that it was possible for Lagos State to generate up to N1tn annually from property tax if the potential in the sector is harnessed.
Oyedele said this on Tuesday in his keynote speech at the Tax Reform Summit 2026 titled, ‘From Reforms to Results: The Lagos Implementation Roadmap, Creating a Tax Environment that Works for All’, convened by the Office of the Special Adviser on Taxation and Revenue and the Lagos State Treasury Office.
While emphasising the need for standardisation, transparency, and harmonisation of tax practices to reduce compliance costs and improve taxpayer confidence at the subnational levels, Oyedele highlighted the potential for tax revenue from properties with just two million taxable properties in Lagos valued at N100m, generating N1tn annually in taxes.
He said, “Part of what you want me to speak to is also on property as a sustainable revenue anchor.
Property taxation is one of the most underutilised yet stable revenue sources available to states and local governments.
When done properly, property tax is difficult to evade. It grows with urban development, so it’s funding itself and aligns payment with visible public services. Every naira we collect, we invest back into the community. As you provide roads, potable water and other infrastructure, the value of those properties goes up. Living standards go up, and in turn, they finance even more development. However, success depends on proper property enumeration, accurate valuation, transparent dealing and predictable enforcement. All of those must work together.”
Speaking further on property tax, Oyedele asserted that data is critical to bringing in property tax: “Data is critical, a credible database of taxpayers, and not just taxpayers. The value of property is part of your tax base. How many people are employed and earning income is part of the size of your tax base, including a reliable valuation for those properties. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: if just two million properties are taxable in Lagos State for property tax purposes, and they are worth an average of N100m, and you tax at just 0.5 per cent of the valuation. That’s N1tn every year invested back into the community. It can only grow.”
The tax man challenged Lagos State to demonstrate leadership as it relates to data and the enactment of the legal framework for tax operations at the subnational level.
He asserted, “One critical area for Lagos State is to demonstrate leadership in the quality of data for fiscal and economic planning, from the property register to fiscalisation and the taxpayer database for individuals. I think that, you know, in Nigeria today, the number of active individual taxpayers is under 10 million for the whole country. I think that’s the number we should have for Lagos State, and I think we need to make that possible. We cannot achieve all of these if we do not pay attention to data.
“So, what’s my call to action? I encourage us to focus on how best to make collaborative implementation work, not whether we want to collaborate. That question is not available anymore. Once we have the will, we will always find a way. To serve as a legal framework for collaboration, the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reform Committee, working with the Joint Revenue Board, has drafted a model tax harmonisation law for the consideration and enactment by states. So, we are glad to have our distinguished lawmakers in the room. Ekiti State, Zamfara, Anambra and Kano have passed the law already in their respective states, so we are expecting Lagos State to be the next. Revenue collection across agencies within the state also needs to be harmonised into the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service. There is a reason why the revenue agency knows how to collect taxes. When you ask other people to collect revenue in whatever form or shape, you promote inefficiency, which does not help anyone. Reform succeeds when states and local governments collaborate, and we rely on data rather than instinct or discretion.”
Oyedele also emphasised the importance of subnationals to the tax reform, saying, “We (must) leverage technology for transparency so that service delivery is not only visible but also commensurate to taxes. Collective tax reform is not an event. It’s a process, and it requires courage, consistency and work. Everyone was in doubt that courage was there for any reform,
Lagos can generate N1tn yearly from property tax – Oyedele
