Semiconducting photocatalyst is an important class of functional materials that underpins the development of new technologies for solar energy utilization such as photocatalytic water/air purification, hydrogen production from water splitting and photovoltaic cells. A main drawback for most existing oxide semiconductors lies in their large band gap and hence only photo-activity in the UV range. To utilize visible light dominant solar energy, it is highly desirable to develop efficient visible light photocatalysts. Herein, we demonstrate that simple nitrogen doping in a layered tantalate compound could lead to significant red shift in its absorption edge up to 460 nm. Moreover, this enhanced visible light absorption is originated from an intriguing band-to-band activation instead of a commonly observed shoulder for other photocatalysts. Detailed characterisations including XRD, XPS, nitrogen adsorption, UV-visible spectra, SEM and FIIR were employed to gain better understanding of this new layered compound. The photocatalyst exhibited superior visible light photocatalytic performance in photodegradation of organic pollutants than that of benchmarking P-25 powder.