Internally generated revenue by 35 states for the 2016 fiscal year increased by 17.5 percent to N802 billion from N683 billion generated in the preceding year. A breakdown of the IGR shows that the increase was driven by PAYE, Direct assessment, Road taxes, Revenue from MDAs and other taxes. The highest and lowest revenue generating states were Lagos (38%) and Ebonyi (0.1%) respectively. An improvement in the efficiency of the tax system could improve the contributions of the IGR to overall government revenue. Particularly, incorporating workers in small stores, agricultural and informal businesses into the tax system; building capacity of tax officials and computerizing their operations; as well as investing in quality data collection and access could provide some quick wins.

Recently released report by Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI)shows a significant decline in revenue allocation across the three tiers of government for 2016H1 (January to June). Specifically, total disbursements dropped (year-on-year) by 30.45 percent to N2.01 trillion in 2016H1. The drop in revenue allocations is accountable to the decline in both oil and non-oil revenue. While lower oil revenue was triggered by the drastic fall in oil price and production in 2016H1, lower non-oil revenue was driven by the decline in tax revenue occasioned by contraction in economic activities in the review half-year.