Tax Justice and Voluntary Compliance of the Tax Payers in Nigeria

Abstract

The study investigated  how tax justice could influence voluntary tax compliance among tax payers in Nigeria in which the theoretical underpinnings was expediency theory which establishes the practicability and feasibility of a tax administration to the extent of its formulation and collection. The proxies of Tax justice were Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT), Companies Income Tax (CIT) , Duties (D) and Value Added Tax(VAT) while the proxies of voluntary compliance before the advent of Voluntary Assets Income and Declaration Scheme (VAIDS) is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP ) upon which tax was paid). The result of study of the main objective posited a significant relationship between  tax justice and voluntary tax compliance among tax payers (0.03 @ 5% significance level). The result of the specific objectives also revealed significant relationship between the explained and explanatory variables (0.02, 0.00 @ 5% significant level). In addition the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) result of 0.00 is significant at 5% level. Also Pearson’s result shows a positive correlation between GDP on one hand and PPT, CIT, D, VAT on the other hand. The study therefore concluded that with a virile and tax justice system many tax payers will voluntarily and promptly file returns to pay tax since they can now feel the impact of the tax regime. The work therefore recommended on the need for the government and other tax policy formulators of government to continue to pursue a positive tax system that will have a direct impact on the tax payers in terms of infrastructure provisions and a friendly business environment in that by so doing the confidence of the tax payers would be rekindled to continue to live up to the expectation of a voluntary tax compliance.