AN APPRAISAL OF THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE TAXATION OF COMPANIES INCOME IN NIGERIA
AN APPRAISAL OF THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE TAXATION OF COMPANIES INCOME IN NIGERIA
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Date
2013-11
Authors
JOHN, Hosea Richards
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Abstract
ABSTRACT
The current wave of globalization and technological revolution has had a tremendous
effect on companies‟ income tax in Nigeria. For instance, the e-commerce which is a
relatively new technology epitomizes boundary, whereas the companies income tax
law upholds the concepts of residence, fixed base and permanent establishment.
Nigerian tax administration is ill-equipped to cope with these emerging tax problems.
The old standard of corporation tax, the manual assessment and enforcement
procedures cannot meet up with the fast- changing commercial activities of the
companies. This consequently creates administrative ineptitude which to a large extent
adversely affects revenue generation in Nigeria. There is therefore the need to probe
into how the developments have affected our domestic Companies Income Tax Act.
This thesisalso attempts to highlight grey areas in corporation tax system in Nigeria
which affects revenue generation. Some of these areas of potential problems are: the
problems of assessment and enforcement of corporate taxes, the negative effect of
globalization on corporation taxes; the legality or otherwise of operating
unincorporated treaties and Double Taxation Arrangement and finally the
complication of enforcement and administration of corporation tax laws.This thesis
entitled “An Appraisal of the Legal Framework For the Taxation of Companies
Income in Nigeria” aims at critically examining the various laws and principles
relating to the taxation of companies in Nigeria. Accordingly, the objectives of the
study is with a view to measuring the adequacies or inadequacies of the said laws and
principles, which if frontally addressed, their menace to corporate tax laws and
consequently to revenue generation will be drastically reduced to the barest minimum.
This research has adopted the doctrinal method which includes tax laws, various
textbooks, treaties, case laws and articles drawn from relevant sources of this research
topic. In the course of this research, it has been found amongst others that there are
complexities in respect of the tax statutes, poor implementation and application of
international corporate double taxation treaties in Nigeria, misinterpretation of
corporate tax terms like “accruing in” “ brought in” or “derived from” and lack of
enforcement skills in the assessment, collection of corporate taxes by tax
administrators.The research concludes that unless there is a wholistic overhaul and/or
introduction of a co-ordinated platform for the administration of corporate tax laws in
Nigeria corporate revenue generation will continue to pose serious challenges in
Nigeria.
Description
BEING A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL,
FACULTY OF LAW, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA, IN PARTIAL
FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE AWARD OF THE
DEGREE OF MASTERS OF LAW-LLM
Keywords
APPRAISAL, LEGAL, FRAMEWORK, TAXATION, COMPANIES, INCOME, NIGERIA