Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) suggests that it grew by 53.09 percent on a quarter-on-quarter basis from N347.81billion recorded in Q4 2021 and 35.61 percent on a year-on-year basis from 392.65 billion recorded in Q1 2021.
By disaggregating company income tax (CIT) revenue into foreign CIT and local payments, in Q1 2022, the local payment was N209.13 billion.
It constitutes about 39.27 percent of total CIT, which is qualitatively similar to 38.79 percent recorded in Q1 2021 but lower than 88.49 percent recorded in Q2 2021, 57.13 percent in Q3 2021, and 74.42 percent in Q4 2021.
The distribution of CIT between local and foreign CIT payments reflects the quarter that local organisations are more likely to remit their CIT payments relative to foreign organisations.
Furthermore, the data shows that Manufacturing, Information and Communication, and Financial and insurance sectors are the top three contributing sectors to the local CIT payments.
The three sectors contributed about 47.5 percent of local CIT payments in the period under review.
The increment in CIT might be partly due to the implementation of TaxPro Max, a digital tool developed by the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) to make tax filing and payment convenient.
The digitisation of tax payments reduces revenue leakages and eliminates challenges associated with cash payments.
The current level of digital tools in tax payment is far from the desired level; hence, the government needs to intensify efforts to increase awareness about the TaxPro Max, which is the FIRS digital tax payment platform.
