Nigeria Needs to Boost Tax-to-GDP Ratio

ABUJA – Nigeria has begun to take steps to boost its tax-to-GDP ratio beyond the miserly level of 6 percent.

Over the weekend at the 2017 Spring Meetings of the IMF-World Bank/IMF in Washington DC the Finance Minister of Nigeria said that the national government must take extra efforts to raise the national tax-to-GDP ratio.

Currently the tax-to-GDP ratio in Nigeria sits at approximately 6 percent, one of the lowest rates in the world.

The Minister said that revenue mobilisation if a key avenue for the government to pursue higher tax returns, adding that the primary focuses should be a growth in non-oil revenues, and an increase in budget transparency.

She further explained that the country’s “unacceptably low level of non-oil revenue” was driven heavily by the failure by tax authorities to collect the required level of taxes from individuals and businesses.

The government is already taking steps to combat the illicit tax evasion, and the Minister said that the government’s data gathering program over the last year was the first step needed to begin combating tax evasion in the country.