asionTHE SOCIO-ECONOMIC PROBLEM OF TAX AVOIDANCE AND EVASION IN NIGERIA: AN OVERVIEW Dominic Asada LL.B. (Hons.) B.L, LL.M. Tax Avoidance and Evasion are some of the most perplexing problems facing the nation today. It is widely believed that there is a considerable difference between estimated revenue from taxation every year and what is actually collected. This disturbing aversion to taxation has some historical antecedents. Traditionally, there has always been a hostile response to the payment of tax by the people who viewed tax collectors as a nuisance to the society. And for the few that paid tax, they did so with the greatest reluctance. Even in the Bible, instances abound where the Jews treated the tax collectors with disdain and …show more content…
Duke of Westminster, Lord Tomlin observed in respect of T ax Avoidance that: "Everyman is entitled, if he can to order his affairs so that the tax attaching under the appropriate Acts is less than it other wise would be. If he succeeds in ordering them so as to secure this result, then however in appropriate, the commissioner of Inland Revenue or his fellow tax payers may be of his ingenuity, he cannot be .compelled to pay an increased tax".8 Thus in spite of the generally held opinion that tax avoidance is unpatriotic and anti-social, it is clear that it is not a moral or legal issue unless the legislature expressly prohibits it. Tax Evasion on the other hand is the deliberate refusal or failure to pay one's tax or the reducti9n of ones tax liability through illegal or fraudulent returns or failure to make a return or pay tax on time.9 Implicit in the definition is that Tax Evasion apart from being a moral wrong also amounts to a breach of the tax law. Perhaps the distinction between Tax Avoidance and Evasion will be better understood and appreciated from the vivid illustration of the Royal Commission on "Taxation of profits and Income”.10 The Commission distinguished as follows: "The latter (that is evasion) denotes all those activities which are responsible for a person not paying the tax that the existing law charges upon his income. Exhypothesis, he is in the wrong, though his
On the other hand, from a deontological point of view, the German philosopher Emmanuel Kant with his categorical imperative states that, “Act as if the maxim of thy action were to become by thy will a universal law of nature.” (Trevino & Nelson, 2014) We can presume that those people who commit crimes to gain financially value their lives based on the assumptions that they exert to achieve this profit for the business which can give them the funds to improve their lives. In regards to the individual’s rights, we have a duty to keep social responsibility in our work and personal lives even if to opposing unethical decisions made similarly in the Tax Fraud Case of Carl William. Correspondingly, there are central principles for accounting employees to help them understand, and comply with a certain sets of ethical standards identified in the
In order for the reader to fully comprehend what the tax evasion argument is and how alternative possibility are not required for responsibility, it is
The United States economy is heading for one of the biggest crashes since 2008. With increased globalization, businesses in America have adapted and grown considerably, but not necessarily for the better. In particular, there are two areas in which certain businesses operate that are risking an unsustainable U.S. economy. That is to say through devious tax avoidance schemes businesses have amassed large offshore stockpiles, which are exempt from U.S. tax deductions. Furthermore, Wall Street has grown exponentially, while increasing volatility in the economy. These two problems beg the question if either are sustainable, and if not, what type of solutions could possibly be implemented, to secure a prosperous United States economy.
Tax fraud is the major problem in the country we live in today. Every second of the day you will find someone committing these illegal activities. This is affecting the economy. Think about the use of the taxes we pay are being use in the economy. In times of a fire or a robbery who do we call? That’s right, we call 911. Without taxes these wouldn’t be available for us. We can also think about the road and highway that get us to our destination in a flash, we have our taxes to thank for this. People will just still your identity and social security number just to commit t tax fraud on you. This can affect the community in many ways. First the economy will drop then businesses will stop making profit. Now this is bad for employer, because companies
It is an illegal practice where a person, organization, or corporation intentionally avoids paying their tax liability. However, typically tax evasion schemes involves an individual or
Since the passage of the first income tax law, tax accountants, lawyers, and business persons have concerned themselves with choosing among the various forms a transaction may take. Tax planning is the process of arranging an individual’s transactions in such a manner as to maximize the individual’s after-tax income. This process is called tax avoidance, and it is a legal and legitimate pursuit.
All over the world, governments undertake huge public expenditure on behalf of their citizens for the provision of basic amenities and other social services. To meet up with these responsibilities, governments thus require substantial amount of funds. Among the various sources from which can generate income, taxes are the most important and most reliable; contributing much more than any other source. A tax therefore, is a compulsory levy imposed by the government on the income, profit or wealth of an individual, family, community, Taxation is the inherent power of the state, exercised through the legislature, to impose financial burdens upon subject within its jurisdiction for the purpose of raising revenues to carry out the legitimate duties of government (Kenned & John, 2014)
In general, a tax shelter is any organized program in which many individuals, rich or poor, participate to reduce their taxes due. However, a few individuals stretch the limits of legal interpretation of the income tax laws. While these actions may be within the boundary of legally accepted practice in physical form, these actions could be deemed to be conducted in bad faith. Tax shelters were intended to induce good behaviors from the masses, but at the same time caused a handful to act in the opposite manner. Tax shelters have therefore often shared an unsavory association with fraud.
Leaked documents from the Mossack Fonseca law firm, which also known as the Panama Papers, have exposed dealings that include name from the football world and few members of the FIFA ethics committee.
If income tax compliance is principally problem of tax evasion, enforcement is the centered concern. It is very suitable for examining the trade-offs between the expected benefits of evading tax with the risk of detection and penalties. If income tax compliance is involving taxpayers’ avoidance, the behavioral approach would better serve the purpose. Self-assessment is accompanied with a system of penalties for defaulters in the UK and New Zealand, and modernization of tax system rely on tax payers to assess their own liability with a system of harsh penalties with wide span in place for ensuring better compliance. Harassment can lessen the eagerness of compliant tax payers to obey in the perception of an unfair system. There must be a balanced approach in promoting voluntary income tax compliance as well as deterring willful non- compliant behavior. Despite the limitations of this philosophy and the insightful appeal of the broader behavioral approach, the economic approach still has a positive role to play in income tax compliance field. Both approaches should be amalgamated and part of a single policy for income tax compliance mechanism. Tax payer motivation factor in particular and his behavior in general in overall tax background need to be discovered. This research would result in better understanding of behavioral relationships involved in income tax
Taxes are a compulsory contribution to the state revenue, levied by the government on workers’ income and business profits or added to the cost of goods, services and transactions. In the United States, nearly everyone is taxed, and it is the taxpayer’s duty to report all income to the IRS. The IRS is the International Revenue Service of the United States federal government; it is responsible for the collection of taxes and enforcement of tax law. Some people try to avoid paying taxes by failing to report some or even all of their income which is an illegal thing to do. Failure to report all or a portion of your income can result in a number of penalties and even jail time. Everyone has to pay taxes and some, such as the wealthy ought to
The decision to evade one’s taxes is influenced by specific demographics. Tax evasion carries high ethical and moral costs. In addition to looking and certain demographics, such as age, gender, morals etc., the research also examines motives. There are different views on tax evasion, varying person to person. The two most prominent views are that paying one’s taxes is a public duty, while the other view is that it is a moral obligation. The different studies provided in this paper explore tax evasion across more than fifty countries, including developed and developing countries. Ultimately, this paper aims to discover the key to diminishing tax evasion.
The investigative long-running television documentary Panorama drawing on the ‘current affairs’ has gained considerable attention and credibility from viewers for a long time. As one episode of this factual television programme, ‘The Bank of Tax Cheats’ inherits the impartiality of this popular TV series and conducts an investigation around the issue of tax evasion, trying to find out how the Britain’s biggest bank HSBC has assisted its wealthiest clients to avoid paying tax. This essay will produce a detailed analysis of this particular case, focusing on how it structures and presents the real event in order to pursue the journalistic objectives and truthfulness.
Through this survey, they hoped to “rank the main arguments that have been used to justify tax evasion on ethical grounds over the last 500 years” meaning that they hoped to find which arguments carried to the most influence to prove that in that instance it is ethical (pg. 1). While collecting data to ultimately rank these arguments, Nickerson et al. (2009) clumped data together in accordance to the country of the participants. They took the mean scores from the survey, based on a scale of 1 being always ethical and 7 being never ethical, and compared them based on country. They found that the United Kingdom has the lowest mean average from the survey at 4.15, suggesting a low resistance to tax evasion, while United States participants average a 5.62, suggesting a high tax compliance. These findings are a result of a combination of the community perceptions, the countries tax penalties, and the perceptions of the government. This proves that all three factors that lead to poor ethics in an individual play an extremely large role in whether or not an individual will commit tax evasion. If economic reasons where the root of whether or not an individual would commit tax evasion or not, then the graph would be arranged differently and have different mean averages that only correlated to the risk of
This chapter provides background information regarding tax compliance by SMEs in Zimbabwe. The topics covered in the chapter include background of the study, statement of the problem, the objectives of the study, main research question, sub research questions and justification of the study. Other sub-topics covered include significance of the study, delimitations, and limitations of the study and definition of terms.