Abstract

The oil sector that eased the financial constraint of Nigerian government in the 1970s is presently acting as the source of financial constraints to the country due to a continuous decline in government revenue, arising from the recent drastic fall in world crude oil prices. This calls for the government to diversify its revenue base through improving taxation. This study examined the influence of economic performance on the government revenue as well as the various sources of tax revenues in Nigeria. Monthly data spanning 1999 to 2016 were utilized to estimate vector error correction models (VECM) for five sources of government tax revenues based on data availability. Empirical results revealed that there is a significant relationship between real GDP and real company income tax revenues, and between real GDP and real excise duty revenues in the long run. However, in the short run, the one-year lag of tax revenue varieties poses a significant influence on the various sources of tax revenues.

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