Title: Honesty, tax fairness, government's responsiveness and voluntary tax compliance in Nigeria

Authors: Babatunde Gbadegesin Adeyeye; Olatunde Julius Otusanya; Simon Sunday Aso Arowomole

Addresses: The Department of Accounting, Faculty of Business Administration, University of Lagos, Nigeria ' The Department of Accounting, Faculty of Business Administration, University of Lagos, Nigeria ' The Department of Accounting, Faculty of Business Administration, University of Lagos, Nigeria

Abstract: Government needs funds to provide some basic social amenities for the generality of the masses and tax presents a sure way of getting a large sum of these needed funds in most countries. However, it is noted that people do not like paying tax because of government's dishonesty by not fulfilling their promises to the people; because taxpayers feel that taxes imposed on them are not fair; and due to government's non-responsiveness to the plights and aspirations of the citizens. This paper examines how taxpayers' perception of honesty, tax-fairness and government's responsiveness could impact their voluntary tax compliance. Cross-sectional survey using structured questionnaire was adopted. Sample size of 1,700 was randomly selected from the population of tradesmen and artisans totalling 11,900, belonging to 17 trade associations in Lagos State. 69% response rate was achieved. Spearman's correlation and PLUM-ordinal regression were used to analyse the data. This paper argues that voluntary tax compliance would be encouraged if government is perceived to be honest, tax being perceived to be fair and government is perceived to be responsive to the plights and aspirations of the citizens. Recommendations made in line with the findings.

Keywords: taxpayer perceptions; voluntary tax compliance; VTC; tax fairness; Nigeria; government responsiveness; perceived honesty; perceived fairness; perceived responsiveness.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEA.2016.083134

International Journal of Economics and Accounting, 2016 Vol.7 No.4, pp.326 - 344

Received: 12 Mar 2016
Accepted: 20 May 2016
Published online: 21 Mar 2017 *

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