The 36 states of the federation made N751.17bn from road tax, direct assessment, and other taxes in three years, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data.
Tax
According to the NBS, direct assessment refers to a form of personal income tax used to assess tax for self-employed individuals or tax imposed on informal businesses by the state authorities.
It says road taxes are daily levies paid by transport business operators within a state, while other taxes include levies placed on market traders, land registration and other land-related activities.
It also includes development levies on individuals, pool betting/lottery/gaming fees, and stamp duties on individuals.
These taxes, revenues from Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) form the bedrock of the Internally Generated Revenue for states.
Tax breakdown
The highest of this form of tax was collected in 2019 (N294.54bn), followed by 2018 (N229.05bn), and 2020 (N227.58bn).
In the period under review, Lagos (N262.85bn), Rivers (N60.96bn), and Kano (N43.71bn) were the three top earners. Taraba (N976.29m), Yobe (N1.13bn), and Nasarawa (N1.41bn) were the least earners.
The top five earning states accounted for 57.76 per cent (N433.86bn) of the total amount generated. The bottom five earning states accounted for 1.03 per cent (N7.75bn) of the total.
2018-2020
From 2018 to 2020, states generated the following as road tax, direct assessment, and other taxes; Lagos (N262.85bn), Rivers (N60.96bn), Kano (N43.71bn), Ogun (N38.42bn), Kaduna (N27.93bn), Edo (N27.31bn), Sokoto (N24.69bn), and Delta (N24.26bn).
Cross Rivers (N23.79bn), Ondo (N22.27bn), Oyo (N21.59bn), Anambra (N15.59bn), Zamfara (N15.52bn), Niger (N13.12bn), Jigawa (N12.29bn), Akwa Ibom (N11.83bn), Kebbi (N9.93bn), Enugu (N9.56bn), Abia (N9.09bn), and Imo (N9.05bn).
Plateau (N8.59bn), Ekiti (N7.18bn), Kogi (N6.85bn), Ebonyi (N6.62bn), Kwara (N6.42bn), Gombe (N6.09bn), Borno (N4.29bn), Bayelsa (N4.26bn), Osun (N3.89bn), Adamawa (N2.77bn), Benue (N2.71bn), Katsina (N2.14bn), Bauchi (N2.09bn), Nasssarawa (N1.41bn), Yobe (N1.13bn), and Taraba (N976.29m).