TAX COMPLIANCE STRATEGIES AND INTERNALLY GENERATED REVENUES IN RIVERS STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

This study therefore focused on tax compliance strategies and internally generated revenues in Rivers State, Nigeria. Specifically, aimed at examining the effect of voluntary tax compliance on personal income tax, ascertain the effect of voluntary tax compliance on company income tax, examine the effect of tax compliance simplicity on personal income tax, and ascertain the effect of tax compliance simplicity on company income tax in Rivers State, Nigeria. The study adopts survey research design. The target population of the study consists of seven (7) branches of Revenue collection offices in Rivers State, Nigeria with total respondents of two hundred and ninety-nine (299) and the same sample size used employing census sampling technique. Primary source of questionnaire data was extracted from the staff of the Rivers State Board of Internal Revenue Service and the Nigeria Revenue Services that work in the relevant departments as related personnel, auditing, finance and accounts department.  The result of the analyses showed to be reliable with Cronbach Alpha and was above 0.7 coefficients. Data was analyzed using Description Statistics and Linear Regression Estimates with the aid of SPSS Version 23.0. The results showed that the effect of voluntary tax compliance on personal income tax in Rivers State, Nigeria is negative and statistically significant; the effect of voluntary tax compliance on company income tax in Rivers State, Nigeria is positive and statistically not significant; the effect of tax compliance simplicity on personal income tax in Rivers State, Nigeria is positive and statistically significant; the effect of tax compliance simplicity on company income tax in Rivers State, Nigeria is negative and statistically significant. The study concluded that the proxies of tax compliance strategies have both positive and negative effect on the measures of internally generated tax revenue in Rivers State, Nigeria. Thus, the study recommended amongst others that Rivers State Government should consider tax compliance strategies in terms of voluntary tax compliance strategy because by so doing, internally generated revenue would fully impact the economy of the state positively.