According to data compiled by The Guardian, Nigeria’s corporate landscape is facing significant strain, as revenue generated from Company Income Tax (CIT) dropped by a massive 31.05% over the past year. The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) formal report for the first quarter revealed that total CIT revenues tumbled down to N1.37 trillion, representing a steep drop from the N1.98 trillion collected during the matching window of 2025. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, corporate tax yields also shrank by over 8%, revealing a persistent multi-month economic slowdown.
Economic experts point out that the steep drop in corporate tax receipts is a direct reflection of a difficult domestic operating environment. Over the past several quarters, businesses across the country have battled severe foreign exchange fluctuations, skyrocketing energy tariffs, and weakened consumer purchasing power. These persistent headwinds have forced several prominent manufacturing firms to significantly scale down operations, change locations, or close down their operations completely.
In a contrasting fiscal twist, the statistics bureau noted that revenue collected from Value Added Tax (VAT) enjoyed a notable boost, climbing up to N2.42 trillion. This marks a 17.06% increase compared to the previous year’s performance, indicating that while corporate profitability is shrinking, consumer transactions driven by highly inflated prices are keeping consumption-tax collections high. Sectoral data showed that the financial services, insurance, and mining industries contributed the largest remaining shares to the corporate tax pool.
Additional reportage by Vanguard and The Nation highlighted the growing corporate anxiety behind these fiscal numbers. Vanguard pointed out that “the shrinking corporate tax base serves as a stark warning that the productive sector is choking under extreme overheads.” Similarly, The Nation observed that “the widening gap between crashing corporate profit taxes and rising consumption VAT highlights an economy running primarily on inflation rather than industrial growth.”
**Echotitbits take:** A 31% drop in corporate tax receipts signals a shrinking private sector that will inevitably impact national job creation and long-term GDP expansion. Policymakers must quickly shift focus from aggressive tax collection to structural business support, particularly by addressing high commercial energy costs and simplifying foreign exchange access for manufacturers.
Source: The Guardian – https://guardian.ng/news/nigeria/national/corporate-tax-revenue-drops-31-amid-economic-strain-nbs/, June 15, 2026
Photo credit: Business Post Nigeria
