The Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee says the virtual currency under the new tax reform policy will be liable to tax.

Taiwo Oyedele, the chairman of the committee, said this at an online public lecture organised by the Capital Market Academics of Nigeria (CMAN) on Wednesday.

Virtual currency is a digital or electronic representation of value that exists only online without a physical form.

It is often issued and controlled by private developers or a specific virtual community, and can be used for transactions within that community or, in the case of convertible types like cryptocurrencies, exchanged for real-world currency.

Mr Oyedele, who said the new policy had exempted capital market gains from tax, urged stakeholders to educate the youth on the gains of investment in the market.

He said the exemption was an opportunity to attract young investors away from cryptocurrency and gambling.

The chairman emphasised the need for information management in the market to avoid discouraging potential investors from the market.

”Virtual currency under the new law is liable to tax.

”Capital market gains for virtually everybody are exempted, so why are we not telling our young people that the returns on our capital market are better and it is exempted.

”But if you go and ask any young person on the street now to invest in the market, he or she will tell you that there is 30 per cent tax on it and that is misinformation.

”Real people make bad decisions when misinformed, narratives drive sentiments, and the latter creates our reality.

”The market is vulnerable to false information in the short term; the market is often right in the long run (but some investors may have lost their livelihood in the short run,” he said.

On tax refund, Mr Oyedele said the law provided that the government must set aside some money for the refund.

According to him, in the new tax law, the government will no longer share all the revenue generated.

He said the committee was working with the National Orientation Agency (NOA) to help disseminate the law in local languages, enabling people, especially at the grassroots, to understand it better.

(NAN)