Implications of Economic Recession for Value Added Tax revenue: A Case of Nigeria

Value Added Tax (VAT), a consumption tax was introduced in order to support other source of government revenue in balancing the budget. This study conducts a critical evaluation of the implications of VAT revenue on the economy proxied by Gross Domestic Product (GDP). To achieve this objective data was obtained from repository of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and other relevant agencies. Statistical trend analysis and bivariate correlation of VAT revenue with GDP was carried out using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) to evaluate the data. VAT revenue was highly positively correlated with GDP but not with Total Federally Collected (TFC) revenue due perhaps to its minuteness relative to TFC. With the level of GDP, indicative of consumption level, greater amount of VAT should be generated, but bedeviled by laxity in tax administration, corruption on the part of tax officers and taxpayers. It is imperative for the government to overhaul the VAT law, retrain tax officers, reevaluate database of tax agent and reactivate and improve tax enforcement mechanism