 Thanks for joining us on Plus News Now, I am Maureen Menon-Wesigui. The Federal Executive Council has ratified the Finance Bill for the 2022 fiscal year. This draft bill was prepared by the Fiscal Policy Committee and it has been forwarded to the National Assembly for consideration. Minister of Finance Zainab Abbott stated this as part of the resolutions reached at the Federal Executive Council meeting. The Minister said the bill focuses on reviewing some tax and fiscal law towards enhanced revenue generation. For Council's ratification, the Finance Bill 2021 for the 2022 fiscal year. I'm sure you will have all noted that this bill has already been transmitted by its Excellency, the President, to the National Assembly and both houses have already started working on the bill. So this draft bill was prepared by the Fiscal Policy Committee and it focused on tax and reviewing some fiscal laws and also amending some. And these laws are about 11 in number that have been affected. And the purpose for us is to be able to refine our fiscal laws to improve tax compliance and also to enhance revenue generation. So the proposed legislation falls under five broad categories. The first one, of course, is domestic revenue mobilization. And various measures are proposed in the bill to enhance revenue. And this includes one, limiting exempts, exemptions of gains from shares, disposals from capital gains tax to long-term equity investments, and two, closing tax loopholes for companies that are transiting from the previous Patreon profit tax regime to the dual corporate tax and hydrocarbon tax regime that is provided under the new Patreon Industry Act of 2021. Three, there's also provisions that have been made to prevent the abuse of personal income tax relief by individual taxpayers and allowances to evade taxation. The second broad category is tax administration reforms. And this includes provisions to support the FIRs ongoing reforms to fully automate and deploy technology to enhance collections and encourage taxpayer compliance. And there are several measures in that category. The third one is international taxation reforms. These provisions empower the FIRs to better assess non-resident companies to taxation by taxing profits derived from digital services rendered to Nigerian customers. And it's also designed to reduce the tax compliance burdens for non-resident taxpayers that are not required to register in Nigeria as companies. The third broad objective of the finance bill is financial reforms to enhance tax equity. Most of these provisions that have been made in the bill, the provisions that have been made, are to enhance ongoing capital market reforms relating to securities lending transactions, capital estate investment trust, as well as a minimum taxation reductions that have been pioneered by the previous two finance bills. And the fifth principle is critical public financial management reforms. These reforms are designed to strengthen the FIRs tax administration and coordination role in relation to the collection of taxes vis-à-vis the responsibilities of relevant law enforcement agencies, such as the Nigerian police or the EFCC. And also to ensure and reinforce the supremacy of the fiscal rules and regulations as provided for by the Finance Controls and Management Act, as well as the 1999 Constitution as amended. So having made these provisions, I just want to emphasize that rather than proposing new taxes or increasing tax rates, the Finance Bill for the 2022 fiscal year focus on closing loopholes and improving tax administration to enable the Federal and Law Revenue Service play its expected role of leading in the collection of existing taxes. Notified about fresh news updates.