THE ROLE OF THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT IN STRENGTHENING TAX SYSTEMS IN NIGERIA: SOLUTIONS TO TAX COLLECTION

Abstract

Tax systems across the world are possibly pragmatic artifices of government designed to meet the prevailing challenges of the nation in question.  As such, no tax system can lay claim to being perfect but must evolve in tandem with the history of the country.  Nonetheless, there are certain universals which are expected to be descriptive of any tax system irrespective of the peculiarities of the country’s socio-political landscape.  According to a working paper by the UN (UNDP, 2011), a tax system must encourage good governance by being a good fit with the nation’s overall development strategy.  It must also promote inclusiveness by ensuring that potentially divisive ethnic, political and religious group memberships do not encroach upon the objective detachment of the system (UNDP, 2011).  A good tax system must also conform to the society’s views on appropriate income as well as society’s expectations on what should happen in the event of stark wealth differentials among the populace (EY, 2015).  Flowing from this point, a good tax system must also promote social justice by upholding the principles of fairness and an equitable distribution of the burden of taxation on the basis of income and wealth (UNDP, 2011).