Business
Expert Wants Taxpayers Assessed On Income And Expenditure
The Treasurer, Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN), Mr Adesina Adedayo, has urged tax administrators to assess taxpayers on the basis of their expenditure rather than income.
Adedayo told newsmen in Lagos, that the current system in the country where taxpayers were assessed based on their income was becoming challenging.
He said that it was always difficult to determine the accurate income of taxpayers.
The treasurer said that once the domestic expenditures of an individual had been ascertained, then the findings could be used to estimate the taxpayer’s annual income.
“In the current situation in Nigeria, what we do is income tax assessment. It has to do with the income you made. Unfortunately, ascertaining income is becoming challenging.
“Therefore, the other alternative would have been expenditure based because if you are able to determine the domestic expenditure of an individual, then you know that for him to be able to meet the obligation of taking care of his home, taking care of his rent, taking care of his children school fees, we can equally equate that to estimate the income the man made.
“Let us say for example, the man is living in a N600,000 per annum accommodation, his children are attending school and he is paying about N1 million school fees.
“And then we look at his standard of living, if he is in the middle class, we assumed that at least in a month he will be spending about N30,000 on feeding which is about N360,000 per annum. When you add all these up, you can estimate that his income in a year would be about N2.4 million.
“So it means he would be assessed on the basis of that N2.4 million gross income by looking at his expenditure. That is the only reasonable way we can come up with something that can be difficult to challenge in court.’’
Adedayo said that small scale business operators such as petty traders could also be assessed on the basis of their expenditures to determine what they should pay as tax.
Cornerstone of Financial Services
A survey of more than 1 000 global finance leaders undertaken by digital payment network Ripple shows that 72% of respondents believe they need to offer a digital asset solution to remain competitive.
According to Ripple, leaders from the banking, fintech, corporate and asset management sector have made it clear that the “digital asset revolution is happening now”.
“Digital assets are quickly becoming a cornerstone of financial services, underpinned by progressive regulation, growing interest from Tier-1 banks, a steady consumer shift from banks to fintech providers, and booming stablecoin adoption,” Ripple says.
The survey was conducted in early 2026 and the findings released in March.
Stablecoin Boon or Bane?
Ripple has experienced significant success in the stablecoin sector since launching its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin in 2024.
With a market cap of $1.56 billion, it is considered a major regulated player in the market.
No doubt the platform was pleased to learn through its own survey that financial leaders were most bullish about stablecoins.
Roughly three-quarters of respondents believed they could boost cash-flow efficiency and unlock trapped working capital.
Ripple noted that finance leaders were thinking about stablecoins as more than “just a new way to execute payments”; instead, they viewed them as effective tools for treasury management.
In March 2026, Ripple began testing a new trade finance model built around RLUSD in a bid to increase the speed of cross-border payments.
The pilot initiative, developed alongside supply chain finance company Unloq [https://unloq.com], is running on the XRP Ledger inside a testing framework developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The Asian city-state is one of the platform’s biggest growth markets.
The idea behind the project is to see whether stablecoin-based settlement can streamline trade finance, too often hampered by reliance on intermediaries and slow reconciliation.
The only potential drawback is that if the initiative takes off, the Ripple to USD price could be negatively affected.
Ripple has always championed its native XRP token as a bridge asset, the “middleman” in the process of a financial institution turning dollars in the US into pounds in the UK, for example.
Ripple converts dollars into XRP and then back into pounds.
If RLUSD can do exactly the same thing, questions will be asked about XRP’s relevance.
That is a bridge Ripple will have to cross if it gets to that point.
Tokenisation Partners
Another interesting finding from Ripple’s survey is that most banks and asset managers are seeking tokenisation partners to help execute their strategies.
Some 89% of respondents said digital asset storage and custody were top priority. “Token servicing/lifecycle management also ranks highly for banks at 82%, while asset managers place greater emphasis on primary distribution at 80%,” Ripple found.
The survey also revealed that just more than half of fintechs and financial institutions want an infrastructure provider that can offer a “one-stop-shop solution”. This rose to 71% among corporate financial leaders.
Ripple attributes this to institutions and firms wanting uncomplicated, cohesive systems.
Infrastructure Rules
In its final analysis, Ripple says companies across the board are looking for partners and solutions that are “secure, compliant, battle-tested and that enable growth and execution”.
“The message is clear: infrastructure decisions made today will shape competitive positioning tomorrow.”
No surprise that this is precisely where Ripple is placing much of its focus.
