The economic policy focus of the Tinubu government since its assumption of office has been towards mobilising revenue to meet government expenditure. And, it has done well in this regard. In many cases, reported revenues exceeded projected income by significant margins, particularly tariffs on imports and taxes and levies collected by the NNPCL. Actually, efficient and effective revenue collection from non-oil items like Companies Income Tax, Value Added Tax, and Customs duties has regularly overshot expectations in recent times.
Companies have been complying with tax policies on payments in line with tax administration reforms on Companies Income Tax, while digitalisation of tax collections has aided improvements in VAT collection, and the automated processes of tariff collection by customs have propelled the realisation of huge returns from Customs collections. The Nigerian Customs Service shows overperformance when it was reported to have collected N3.68tn in the first half of a fiscal cycle, beating a pro-rata projection by N390bn.
Within an 8-month tracking block, the non-oil revenue reached N15.69tn or 75 per cent of all federally collected revenue, and gross non-oil collections reached a peak when they rose by 28.85 per cent in a single month-over-month period, shifting from N1.86tn to N2.4tn. While the non-oil revenues have been performing wonderfully and keeping the revenue targets afloat, the oil and gas sector, in terms of output, has been underperforming. However, the biggest source of revenue in the country remains the petroleum sector, as Petroleum Profit Tax and royalties make up a major part of the national income, and crude oil and gas sales dominate foreign exchange earnings and government revenue.
