TAX REVENUE AND NIGERIAN EXTERNAL PUBLIC DEBT

The study ascertained how tax income affected Nigeria's foreign state debt. The assessment of the effects of value-added tax, corporation income tax, customs and excise duty, and petroleum profit tax on Nigeria's external public debt was one of the main goals. Secondary data were gathered during a 23-year period (2000–2023) from annual reports and accounts provided by the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). In order to ascertain the properties of the model variables, the study employed descriptive statistics. At the 0.05 level of significance, the influence of the independent variables on Nigeria's external public debt was estimated using Ordinary Least Square (OLS) multiple regression. The results of the OLS regression analysis demonstrated that the external public debt was significantly and negatively impacted by the Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT), and Company Income Tax (CIT). The study did find, however, that value added tax had no appreciable effect on Nigeria's external public debt. Overall, these results suggest that tax collection has helped Nigeria's external public debt decline. Accordingly, the study came to the conclusion that tax revenue had an impact on Nigeria's foreign debt during the study period. Therefore, the report suggested that rather than using tax money on pointless, poorly thought out, and profit-free enterprises, the government should utilize it to immediately pay down the national debt.