The third quarter Value Added Tax (VAT) report from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has shown that Nigeria’s VAT collection increased by 21.34% from N781.35 billion in the second quarter to N948.07 billion in Q3, 2023.
Details of the report show that, N522.08 billion was collected in local payments, while N204.58 billion was collected in foreign VAT payments and N221.41 billion from import VAT during Q3 2023.
According to the report, on a quarter-on-quarter basis, agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors saw the most substantial growth rates at 91.87 per cent, with activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies coming next at 80.25 per cent.
Conversely, the real estate sector experienced the lowest growth rate at –37.68 per cent, trailed by construction at –9.54 per cent.
However, the activities of households as employers and undifferentiated goods- and services-producing activities of households for own use accounted for the smallest share at 0.02 per cent, followed by water supply, sewerage, waste management, and remediation activities at 0.06 per cent, and activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies at 0.10 per cent.
In terms of sectoral contributions, the three leading shares in Q3 2023 were manufacturing at 26.51 per cent, information and communication at 19.04 per cent, and financial & insurance activities at 12.31 per cent.
The manufacturing sector raked in N138.38 billion, followed by N99.42 billion for the Information and Communication sector, while the manufacturing and ICT sectors both recorded a drop in VAT returns.
For the ICT sector, there was a drop of N9.02 billion in returns for VAT in Q3, compared to the N108.4 billion for Q2, 2023.
The VAT collected from the manufacturing sector, was a decline of about N13.40 billion in Q3 when compared to the N151.78 billion collected from the sector in the second quarter.
On a year-on-year comparison, VAT collections in Q3 2023 experienced a notable increase of 51.60 per cent from Q3 2022.
