TAX REVENUE AND NIGERIAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT (1994-2021)

Motivated by the rising budget deficit in Nigeria and the need for reinforced revenue sources in Nigeria, the study examined the implication of tax revenue on economic development in Nigeria over the period of 1994-2021. The study employed the human development index as measures of economic development and considered personal income tax, company income tax and value-added taxas tax revenue sources and inflation as mediating variable. Secondary data was employed from the annual report and repository of the Central Bank of Nigeria, the federal inland revenue services online report. The employed data analysis techniques in the study are the Stationarity, Autoregressive Distributive Lag, the stepwise, and the Granger Causality tests. The study observed mixed stationarity at level and first difference. In the long run, it was observed that only the immediate past value of personal income tax revenue per capita and company income tax revenue per capita had a valuable influence on the economic development. Inflation rate was observed to positively and significantly moderate the relationship between tax revenue and economic development in Nigeria. The study therefore concludes that that tax revenue has a selective effect on economic development in Nigeria.  and recommended among others that; There should be a more effective supervision of the tax revenue by the tax regulatory authorities.