The long awaited 2019 Finance Act has been published in the Gazette with a commencement date of Monday 13th January 2020 being the date it was signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari.  

What does this mean?

S.2(1) of the Interpretation Act (IA), titled "Passing and commencement", states that an Act is passed when the President assents to the Bill whether or not the Act then comes into force. S.2(2) of the IA says where there is no provision as to the time when a particular enactment is to come into force, it shall come into force on the day when the Act is passed ...

The "Acts Authentication Act LFN 2004" (AAA) S.3(2) requires a duplicate when passed and signed shall be returned to the Clerk of the National Assembly who shall publish in the Federal Gazette; and the production of a copy of the Federal Gazette containing the Schedule as published shall be conclusive evidence for all purposes.

This means:

  1. that the Finance Act 2019 came into force on Monday 13th January 2020
  2. since the Gazetted copy was only made public in February, the Act is technically retroactive
  3. where it is not practicable to apply any provision of the Act retroactively then the effective date will be 1st of February 2020 as earlier announced by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning.

You can download the gazetted copy here Download Finance Act 2019 Official Gazette

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