ABSTRACT

 Income tax as a source of revenue to the federal government has gone down and has continued to do so since the era of the oil boom. But recently, since the world economic meltdown, most governments including ours (Nigeria) has had to look back again at other sources of our revenue. Further more. the factors affecting income tax administration in Nigeria arc numerous; principal among them is neglect on the part of the government because of the oil boom, dirty politics and lack of political will. This study is to ascertain the effect of income tax revenue to federally collected revenue in Nigeria and how efficient its collection has been from 1995 -2008. The effect of income tax revenue on federally collected revenue was assessed by using company income tax (CIT) as a representative tax source against (1) total federally collected revenue and (2) federally collected non-tax revenue for the years under review ( 1995-2008). It was therefore concluded that at 1% level of significance. the CIT collected for the 14 yrs under review was negligible and had no significant effect on the total federally collected revenue and the federally collected non-tax revenue respectively. Increasing non-oil revenue requires the government to seek improvements in (i) the tax treatment of the tax payer and administration. (ii) Adequate investment for the lax system. and (iii) judicious spending of taxpayer's money. Finally, Nigeria must train special tax judges and establish special tax tribunals; ensure that tax compliance costs are minimal and to adopt the attribute of the tax payer being the king.