Tax Revenue and Poverty Reduction in Ebonyi State

This study examines the relationship between tax revenue generation and poverty reduction outcomes in Ebonyi State, South East Nigeria, one of the country's most economically disadvantaged states. The fiscal link between tax revenue and poverty alleviation depends critically on how revenues are collected, the breadth of the tax base, and the equity with which public expenditure addresses the needs of vulnerable populations. This research adopts an ex-post facto design, analysing Ebonyi State government fiscal data including tax revenue collections, social welfare expenditure, and poverty headcount data sourced from the National Bureau of Statistics over a ten-year period. Trend analysis, Pearson correlation, and regression analysis are employed. The study expects to find that while tax revenue has grown incrementally, its contribution to poverty-sensitive expenditure programmes, such as social protection and basic education, remains constrained by poor budget discipline and revenue shortfalls from ambitious IGR targets. It further analyses the progressivity of the state's tax structure, assessing whether higher earners contribute proportionally to the tax base. Recommendations include designing a complementary social protection fund partially financed from earmarked tax revenues, strengthening the progressivity of personal income tax through expanded bracket differentiation, and establishing a transparent expenditure monitoring mechanism accountable to the state legislature. Keywords: tax revenue, poverty reduction, Ebonyi State, social expenditure, fiscal equity.