From Isaac Anumihe, Abuja
Companies and Income Tax (CIT) generated over N392.77 billion in the first quarter (Q1) of 2021 as against N295.72 billion generated in Q4 2020 and N295.68 billion in Q1 2020.
This was contained in a data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) yesterday.
According to the data, the figures represent 32.82 per cent increase quarter-on-quarter and 32.84 per cent increase year-on-year.
Similarly, breweries, bottling and beverages generated the highest amount of CIT with N23.26 billion generated and closely followed by professional services including telecoms which generated N18.17 billion; state ministries and parastatals generated N17.35 billion while textile and garment industry generated the least and closely followed by mining and automobiles and assemblies with N13.49 million, N34.40 million and N73.57 million generated
respectively.
“Out of the total amounted generated in Q1 2021, N152.33 billion was generated as CIT locally while N184.59 billion was generated as foreign CIT payment. The balance of N55.85 billion was generated as CIT from other payments” NBS, said.
Recall that in the Q4 2020 Gross Domestic Products (GDP) result, telecoms generated the highest amount of Companies and Income Tax (CIT) with N55.52 billion, so prompting a statistics professor from the University of Ibadan and a former president of Nigerian Statistical Association (NSA), Olusanya Olubusoye, to advise the government to focus on the sector.
“I am a quantitative person. The first thing we have to understand is which sector actually drives the growth? If it is telecommunications then more support and attention should be given to the sector. That is the starting point – more support in terms of funding,” he advised.