Federally collected revenue and economic growth in an emerging economy 1981-2019.

Abstract

The study aimed at establishing the relationship and the impacts of the Federally collected tax revenue on the growth of the economy in Nigeria. The federally collected tax revenue considered include the Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT), Companies Income Tax (CIT), Value Added Tax (VAT) and the Customs and Excise duties (CED). The economic growth was represented by the Real GDP (RGDP). The time series data adopted was spooled from the CBN statistical bulletin, the FIRS annual report and the OECD statistics covering the years 1981-2019 (39 years). The data were analysed using the multiple regression of SPSS 26.0. The findings revealed that all the federally collected tax revenue considered for the study had a positive, strong and statistically impactful on the RGDP while the outcome from the regression analysis indicated that the PPT and VAT positively and significantly impacted on the RGDP but the CIT and CED has positive but insignificant impact on the RGDP which resulted from possibility of revenue leakages through evasion and incomplete tax returns filed with the FIRS through the e-tax system. The suggestion is that the Federal government should improve on the technological infrastructure that can enhance an effective tax administration electronically.