EFFECT OF TAX REFORMS ON REVENUE GENERATION IN NIGERIA

The Nigerian government became concerned with seeking alternative source of revenue generation to support her teeming population following the oil price shocks in 2014 which saw oil price crash. Government resorted to tax as part of its strategy to improve its ability to generate non-oil revenue hence the focus of this study is to examine the effect of tax reform on revenue generation in Nigeria. The study adopts the Ex-post facto method of research design with time series data covering a period of thirty-one (31) years from 1986 to 2017. Data were obtained from the CBN statistical bulletin and National Bureau of statistics annual reports for the purpose of analysis. The tax reforms was proxied by Companies’ Income Tax (CIT), value added tax (VAT) and Petroleum Profits Tax (PPT), while the revenue generation was proxied by total federally collected revenue. The study adopts descriptive statistics, Augmented Dickey fuller unit root test, ordinary least square (OLS) regressions, heteroskedasticity test and Variance Inflation Factor for the purpose of analysis. The study found that tax reforms has a positive but statistically significant effect on revenue generation in Nigeria. It is therefore concluded that the taxes have an inverse relationship with revenue generation in Nigeria. The study therefore recommends that companies’ income tax, value added tax and petroleum profits tax should be reviewed in such a way that it will tackle the hydra-headed monster of multiple taxation and promote accountability and transparency in government business so as to restore the confidence of the tax payer in the tax system.