1.0 INTRODUCTION
Revenue is of great important to the three (3) arm of government in order
to enable them carry out their duties of providing social service to the
citizen. The development of any state largely depends on the financial
resources at its disposal and the effective or product utilization of such
available resources on meaningful development project that will enhance
the realization of development goals. Therefore any state that lacks a
strong internal revenue base will find it very difficult to develop.
Revenue generation has been a great concern to a number of government
both state and federal and also their agencies. They have recent times
expressed serious concern about their system of tax due to the
government and service rendered by various agencies. The appropriate
government organization/institution that is largely responsible for the
collection of state revenue is the board of internal revenue.
For any development to take place fund most be available and this must
be carefully expended.
In order words, there is the need to carefully plan development strategies
towards achieving set development objective. The planned development
strategies most be strictly adhered to and the financial resource available
for implementing them should be properly managed for a meaningful
development to be achieved. In addition to this, there must be available
source of information that will aid, in formulating development strategies.
Having made a critical look at the performance of the state government
revenue over the previous years the researcher feel it is necessary to make
this research because knowledge of the past and present performance of
the revenue that will enable someone to have and idea of what future will
look like. In addition this will provide a basis for future decision policies.

1.1 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF STUDY
Nasarawa state was carved out of the defunct Plateau state in 1994, were
we are still at the pre take off stage of economic development. The state
capital had inadequate accommodation both for offices and residence
electricity and water supply were limited to few towns. Health facilities
were quite inadequate and access reads to most of the rural agricultural
areas were not provided.
At this stage of development where there has been the need to start from
the scratch it has become necessary that there should be high level of
revenue flows to the offers of the state government to worsen the
situation the federal government at the time of the state creation refused
to give take off grant as used to be practiced. What was made available to
each of the six state created to be 1996 was N70 million to supplement
the building of secretariat. House of assembly and high court the monthly
sub mention from the federation account was between N80 million and
N120 million before the advent of the democratic setting.

The major source of revenue to the state government are the subvention
from federation account and internally generate revenue which has not
yielded enough funds due to general factor as poor revenue base, lack of
competent personal and qualified manpower to harness revenue source of
the state. It is important to note at this time that the state government is
highly dependent on the allocation from the federation account.

1.1.1 Main Source of Revenue
The main source of revenue for the state are as follows:
1. Statutory allocation
2. Non-statutory allocation i.e grant
3. Internally general revenue (IGR) see the attached list of taxes and
luxuries decree of 1998 collectable by all tiers of government
appendix 1.

1.1.2 Federal Account
This contains the account distributable amongst the three tiers of
government and special fund. They are allocated to state according to
some defined formula suggested by the revenue mobilization and fiscal
commission.
Federal Government 48.5%
State government 24.1%
Local government 20.0%
Special fund 7.5%
The most important source of state revenue has always been statutory
allocation from the federation account, from the point of view of growth
in absolute terms over the year.
The increase has been due to oil boom, which began in 1975, although
the amount has been fluctuating due to changes in world prices.
The internally generated revenue of the state government is small in
comparison to the statutory allocation although state could collect more if
there is improvement in the efficiency of the revenue generated.
The monthly collection chart of Nasarawa state since the creation in
October 1996 is attached for easy reference. The collection were so lined
up to June 1996 when the administration under the leadership of
Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu inaugurated the current board which improved
the performance. In audition to the poor management of the board the
revenue base of the state has been quite low. The source are (PAYE) pay
as you earn. Direct assessment, fines, fees and licenses, withholding
taxes, interest dividends and miscellaneous items.

There has been decreasing non-statutory grant to the state government
because of the increasing problem of the federal government and the
burden of responsibilities it carries. There used to be grant such as
stabilization ecological and other given out to the state government to
help to cushion given problem from time to time. With the
recommendation of National Economic Intelligence Committee (NEIC).
In 1978 special grants of N1 billion was given to each state and Abuja. It
was this grant that gives rise to the establishment of specialist hospital.
Lafia and other projects.

1.1.3 The Profile of Revenue Generation In The State Since October 1996.
Internally generated revenue is one of the sources of revenue accruing to
the state. The attached table shows the profile of the IG since the
inception of the state in October 1998.
The analysis shows that PAYE, withdrawal taxes and road taxes
contributed more than direct assessment.

1.1.4 Some Major Problem Affecting Revenue Generation In Nasarawa
State
Pay As You Earn: This is the revenue accrued from the deduction of
workers salaries from source it is expected that any organization with
employment strength of five employees and above ensures that PAYE is
deducted from the salaries are deducted and remitted to board of internal
revenue of the state. But many organizations are in default. Some do not
deduct the recommended rates.
It is therefore very difficult to have all the tax payed in this category in
our tax net.
There is also lack of supervision from the board if internal revenue.
a. Revenue from Ministries: all ministries have their resources of
revenue and have target in their annual budgets, but they neglect the
targets and mostly scramble to get financial allocation from
ministries of finance rather than to intensify revenue collection.
b. Revenue from Direct Assessment: this is a tax payable in the
income of individuals in self employment.

1.1.5 Imperatives for Revenue Mobilization In The State Short Term
Approach
a. All ministries should strive to achieve their targets in the budgets.
b. All outstanding PAYE, withholding taxes on rents, ground rents
dividends, interest and water rates should be collected. This can be
done through tax auditing of all concerned.
c. The board of internal revenue should prosecute all the tax defaulters.
d. The board of internal revenue should ensure comprehensive
enumeration of all the taxpayers for tax collection purposes.

1.1.6 Long Term Approach
The long-term approach are those that aim to increase revenue base of the
state and these include:
a. The people in Nasarawa state make deliberate policy in patronizing
indigenous contractor for the purpose of creating viable businessmen
who can invest in industrialization and to improve on the purchasing
power of the generality of the populace whose contribution in revenue
mobilizations can be enhanced.

1.2 GENERAL OBJECTIVE
The general objective of this research is to find a basis which will
enhance realistic projection of revenue on which policy maker in the state
could base their policy decisions.

1.2.1 Specific Objectives
The specific objective or aim of this project include the following:
1. To determine whether (source of revenue) PAYE, withdrawal tax,
development levy and road tax can be used in predicting revenue
generated in the quarters.
2. To test whether the mean of the four sources vary significantly across
the quarters.
3. To determine the revenue trend and forecast revenue to be generated in
the subsequent quarters.

1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
The projection of the expected revenue of government is very vital in that
knowledge of what is expected as revenue to the government it will help
the government to plan its expenditure.
In accordance with expected financial resource with realistic projection
their will be no need for government to embark in projects for which firm
will be readily provided or available to execute more projects. Also
developmental plans will be more meaningful if they are based on
reliable projection.

1.4 SCOPE OF STUDY
The scope of this research is about the actual revenue generated in the
state (A case study of board of internal revenue Lafia Nasarawa state).
More so, the revenue covers the internal generated revenue, statutory
allocation and capital receipt.

1.5 LIMITATION OF STUDY
It was the intention of these researcher to cover at least ten years, that is
from 1996 to 2005 but unfortunately the state itself was created in 1996
out of the former Plateau state therefore the state, stated generated it
owned revenue from 1997 to date which is 8 years period, and the
information require for 2005 is yet to be prepared and therefore the
researcher is left with no alternative other than to work with the available
one obtained is 1997 to 2004.

1.6 WHAT IS REVENUE
The encyclopedia Americana (International edition copy right 1978)
define revenue as the receipts of states or local government other than the
grants and aid are usually referred to as revenue. These include income
tax, sales, property taxes and various license fees.

Revenue could therefore be defined as the gross inflow of assets or the
gross decrease in liabilities that result from certain profit direct activities
of enterprise that can change owner.
All the above definition viewed revenue from governmental perspective.
(in 11th century, the American institute of certified public accountants
(AICPA) took to different dimension in attempting to define revenue.
Thus “Revenue resulting from sale of goods and rendering of service and
its measured by the change made to customers, client or tenants for goods
and services furnished to them. It also include gain from sale or exchange
of assets (other than stock in trade), interest and dividends earned on
investments and other increase in the owner except those arising from
capital contribution and capital adjustment”.
In general, the various government of the federation derives their revenue
from two categories of payment that is statutory payment and internal
revenue. Statutory payments are payment received in respect of import
and export duties as well as income received from mineral duties, while
internal revenue simply refers to all monies which are obtained by
government through legislature such as income tax, fine, entertainment
tax, levies rent, reimbursement, miscellaneous etc.

1.7 REVENUE COLLECTION
Of all the areas of relative backwardness of Nasarawa State, none of them
is more in excusable than its pathetic record in internal revenue
generation for this reason the state Governor. Alh. Abdullahi Adamu
express his disappointments with the effort of revenue collector in the
state which he pointed to that not only enough effort not being not being
made to collect all that is due to government, but also the little sum
collected are siphoned away by the unscrupulors revenue collectors and
their collaborators. The governor went further to promise to reorganize
the board of internal revenue. For more effective and efficient revenue
collection, therefore the governor directed all the permanent secretary and
the head of department to present monthly progress reports on revenue
collected under their respective department and ministries.
Other effort to increase internally generated revenue include the
introduction of special levies (such as development levy, education levy
etc). Similarly parastatal in the state were called upon to put themselves
up to bear a greater internal revenue drive.
The level of government subsection to parastatals was reduces
considerably in 1995 to enable then fend for themselves.

The development of Nasarawa state or any state at all depends on the
financial resource of the state it is well known fact that adequate funds
and product management of available funds are any meaningful
development to take place to make these possible it is absolutely
necessary to have effective and efficient development plan based on the
fact and figure (data from past and present to be used as year dipsticks for
planning future development strategies). Based on guess work than any
other thing, the research feel it is necessary to take in this project with a
view to analyzing (statistical) past information on revenue of Nasarawa
state as his little contribution as a Nasarawa lite, to the development
process of the state revenue. A basis will be established for the realistic
estimations of future revenue of the state. Which will in turn help policy
makers in their decision making in the feature.
To achieve this objective, relevant statistical technique will be applied to
available data.