Assessment of the Impact of Direct Taxes on Public Investment in Agriculture in Nigeria

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of direct taxes on agricultural funding. For this analysis, the petroleum profit tax, personal income tax, and corporate income tax were employed as direct taxes. These are the three largest direct taxes chosen for this analysis. Agricultural finance has long been a cause of concern, forcing the entire country to suffer from acute hunger as a result of unnecessary apathy. Furthermore, Nigeria now has a high degree of hunger index at 28.3, placing the country 103rd out of 116 countries in the 2021 Global Hunger Index record. This research considers all of these problems and aims to assess the extent to which direct taxes may alleviate the load by providing more direct tax revenues to agricultural enterprises. The evaluation is carried out by collecting secondary data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on chosen direct taxes and agricultural spending from the Central Bank of Nigeria's Statistical Bulletin. The study period runs from 2010 to 2020. The study used a multiple regression technique to present real evidence that all of the direct tax types analyzed had a minor impact on agricultural finance, with the exception of personal income tax, which has a positive and considerable impact on agricultural growth. This leads to the request that Nigerian tax rules be altered to allow for significant use of tax revenue for agricultural loans. The insignificance of petroleum profit tax and corporate income tax to agricultural funding necessitates more effective tax processes and a crackdown on malfeasance among tax authorities.