ABSTRACT
The importance of personal income tax to government, both as a revenue sources and as a fiscal policy factor cannot be over emphasized. But the concept administration principles of income tax has remained clouded in vagueness, controversies and ambiguity. I therefore embarked on this project to attempt a concise clarification and de-mystification of income taxation particularly in rural setting of Nigeria. To achieve this objective I have divided this project report into five (5) chapters, each chapter dealing with an aspect of the work and helps to highlight the rudiments which when collated, gets to the root of the investigation.Chapter one deals with the general introduction of the report and cover areas like the background to the study, statement of problems, purpose of study, scope of the study, research question, statement of hypothesis and significance of the study.
Chapter two reviews existing literature on personal income tax in Nigeria with special attention to rural areas. In this segment I touched on ideas, opinions and statements of experts and other interested writers on taxation and relevant legislation relating to income tax.Chapter three deals with the research design and methodology.Chapter four involves the presentation and analysis of data collected from primary and secondary sources.Chapter five then rounds up with the findings, and recommendations.It is the hope of the researcher that if the recommendations are implement, at least in part the effectiveness and efficiency of personal income tax administration in Ugwuaji community in particularly and Enugu state in general would be absorbed to a great extent.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
History, the commonest enemy of 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 dine with tax collectors since that meant contaminating oneself. Imagine the degree of hatred.The history of cultures depict the same picture of hatred for both the tax (tribute) collectors and their employees. The history of empires such as the old Roman empire, the British empire, Empires of Western Sudan and those of Hausa states, just to mention a few, were sustained.
The common attributes of all these tributes are that their collection generated a lot of controversies.Here in Nigeria, it can be recalled that imposition and payment of taxes was one of the most outstanding activities of the colonial government. Through different methods, the British were able to imposed taxes on the citizens who viewed them as unwarranted exhortation and exploitation. The situation has not changed since independence regime after regime has been faced with the problem of resistance to tax payment by the citizens who, like their colonial generation regard tax payment as an expenditure in futility, a distasteful exercise, an avoidable loss, a legalized exhortation and punitive measures by he greedy government. Even the rapid development in education has not done much to influence. The negative attitude towards tax payment.If the educated elites or more precisely, the enlighten population of the urban or civilized area regards taxes as obnoxious, those in the rural communities would regards it as a taboo for obvious reasons.