ABSTRACT: The importance of personal income tax to government, both as a revenue source and as a fiscal policy factor cannot be over emphasized. In order to achieve this objective, the project work was divided into five chapters, each chapter dealing with an aspect of the work and helps to highlight the rudiments which when collated, get the root of the investigation. Chapter one deals with the background of the study, statement of problem, purpose of the study, delimitation of the study, research questions, statement of hypothesis and significance of the study. Chapter two deals with the literature review. In this segment I touched on ideas, opinions and statements of exports and other interested writers on taxation and relevant legislation relating to income tax. Chapter three deals with the research design and methodology. Chapter five involves the presentation and analysis of data collected from primary and secondary sources. Chapter five then records up with the findings, discussions of the findings and recommendation. It is the hope of the researcher that if the recommendations are impudent, at vast, in part, the effectiveness and efficiency of personal income tax administration in Ugwuaji community in particular and Enugu State in general would be assured to a great extent.
The importance of personal income tax to government, both as a revenue source and as a fiscal policy factor cannot be over emphasized. That is why the writer has decided to conduct a research on the problems that are facing personal income tax Administration in Rural communities. It is the intention of the writer to restrict this study to personal income tax under the authority of the state Board of internal Revenue which exclude income tax of air force, police personnel, residents of federal capital territory, personnel of the ministry of external aspect of delimitation is that pay as you earn (PAYE) and its administration will not feature. The researcher will employ three major instrument for data collection which are oral personal interview, questionnaire and observation. The data collected will be analyzed by using question introduced, results tabulated, text analysis and which chi-square (X2) to test the hypothesis.
The project work will play the following role in the economy:
In order to achieve this objective, the project work will be divided in five chapters, each chapter dealing with an aspect of the work and help to highlight the rudiment which when collated, get to the root of the investigation.
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
CHAPTER FOUR
Data presentation and analysis
CHAPTER FIVE
Designation: implementation: recommendation
Reference
Appendix
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Historically, the commonest enemy o the people of rural communities in all races or cultures is the tax collectors. In the bible, they were regarded as sinners just for the sake of their freely chosen and legitimately recognized occupation. In the biblical context, it was even offensive to meant containing oneself. Imagine the degree of hatred!
The history of other cultures despite the same picture of hatred for both. The tax (tribute) collectives and their employees. The history of Empires such as the old Roman Empires, the British Empire, Empire of Western Sudan and those of Hausa State, just to mention a few, were sustained by tribute (taxes) paid y their subjects. The common attribute of all these tributes is that their collection generated a lot of controversies.
Here in Nigeria, it can be recalled that imposition and payment of taxes were one of the most outstanding activities of the colonial Government. Through different methods, the British were able to impose taxes on the citizens who viewed them as unwarranted extortion and exploitation. The situation has not changed since independence.
Regime after regime has been face with the problem of resistance of tax payment y the citizens who, like their colonial generation regard tax payment as an expenditure in futility, a distasteful exercise, an avoidable loss, a legalized extortion and punitive measure by the greedy government. Even the rapid development in education has not done much to influence the negative attitude towards tax payment.
If the educated elites are precisely, the enlightened populations of the Urban or civilized areas regard taxes as obnoxious those in the rural communities would regard it as a taboo for obvious reasons. One should have witnessed an encounter between tax collection and villagers to be able to understand the degree of bitterness existing between the two partners. In fact, a story goes that in one such occasion, a tax collector was killed! Incidents of this nature resulting during tax raids in village markets and squares are communities.
Studies show that government do not just imposed taxes without due consideration of certain underlying principles. It is also know that money raised through taxes are not just damaged in a dustbin or packed in a warehouse.
In fact, an appropriate agency of the government explains from time the users which the tax revenues are part in addition to other reason.
Inspite of the position stated in the above paragraph, revenues from taxes have continued to be below expectations. On the part of the taxpayers, the cries have not abated. What a horn of delima! Acts of the National Assembly, tribunals and tax forces on the issue of tax have not yielded the desired results.
The following questions, therefore reading come to the mind:
Expanding the above questions in relation to the rural community under study, some more questions such as these would emanate
An effective and efficient tax administration is important since the revenue from this source is vital to the survival and growth of the benefiting ties of government.
In a federal system like Nigeria, especially with the continuous creation state and local government councils, the financial commitment of the lower ties has continued to grow. To be at par with increased expenditure, different state have introduced levies such as radio levy, development levy, education and technology, fund levy, survival levy etc. all these are to help the government execute some of the programmes
There seems to be too much pre-occupation with what new levy / tax to introduced and too little attention to improvement of the performance of existing source, notably income tax.
But income tax is unique as a source of revenue to the government since apart from the primary objective of generating revenue, it serve to achieve other social economic and political objective. It is therefore imperative that no amount of attention is too much to be devoted to ensure efficient tax administration due to the multiple purpose nature of tax policy. A diligent administration of our tax policy would ultimately render unnecessary, the imposition of so many levies in the search of increased revenue.
The above and many more questions can be answered through a serious work. Hence the topic “problems of income tax administration in rural communities”
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
The problems that inform and create the necessity for studying the topic of study can be seen in a glance in the following common observation
1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The main purpose of this study can be summarized as follows:
1.4 SCOPE / DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY
The focal point of this study is personal income tax (PIT) as defined by income tax management Act (1961) as amended to date by various Decrees and Acts. The study will not cover company income tax, petroleum profit tax, valued Added Tax, capital gain tax, capital transfer tax, and other numbers indirect tax.
However, mention would be made, where necessary, of these forms of taxation especially as a way of clarifying certain conceptual applications
The researcher intends to restrict the study to personal income tax under the authority of state Board of internal revenue which exclude Affairs and Foreign missions.
Another aspect of delimitation is that the pay as you earn system tax payers and its administration will not feature in terms of qualitative measurement by may serve as a guide where necessary. The researcher does not intend to study this aspect of personal income tax since its’ administration is uniform in both urban and rural areas.
The researcher does not cover the accounting aspect of income tax administration. It is restricted to assessment collection machinery and the resulting tax yield. The reference period of the study is 2001 to 2003.
1.5 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
This study is intended to attempt an empirical investigation of the effectiveness and efficiency or otherwise of personal income taxation in rural area. To achieve this objective / certain pertinent questions will be addressed objectively with a view to identifying the problems facing tax administration and consequently, proper solutions to them. Some of these questions are:
1.6 RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS
NULL HYPOTHESIS|:
There is no significant different (9+5% level) between the expected ax/the actual revenue from rural income tax between 2001 and 2003 from Ugwuaji community.
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