A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF INCOME TAX AS A SOURCE TO GENERATE REVENUE IN NIGERIA

BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
The desire to uplift one’s society is the first desire of every patriotic citizen. Tax payment is a demonstration of such desire. The payment of tax is a civil duty and an imposed contribution by government on her subjects and companies to enable her finance or run public utilities and perform other social responsibilities.
Tax has been defined of the English language (1995) defines it as a charge imposed by government authority on property, individuals or transactions to rise money for public purpose.
Tax is a compulsory levy which a government imposes on its citizens to enable it to obtain the required revenue to finance its activities (Adesola 1998). In a more restrictive sense, Abdulrazaq (2002) defined tax “as an enforced contribution of money extracted pursuant to legislative authority”.
Taxation is the process of collecting taxes within a particular jurisdiction while tax is defined as a compulsory levy imposed by the individual, corporate entities, trusts and settlement.
Tax can also be defined as the enforced proportional contribution from person and property levied by the state by virtue of its sovereignty for the support of government and for all public needs. Tax policy on the other hand seeks to provide a set of guild lines, rules and modus operandi that would regulate a tax system and provide a basic for tax legislation and tax administration.
Examining the various definitions of tax, Oluwakayode and Arogundade observe the following fundament common characteristics that any valid definition of tax must contain; element of compulsion, levied by government, backed by law, for public use (direct or indirect).
Tax administration in Nigeria today is guided by various tax laws and the 1999 constitution which states that all other laws must conform to its provision to be varied and operable.

1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Through is has been emphasized strongly that the efficacy of system tax administration is just a mater appropriates laws, but to some extent is depends on the integrity of the tax administrator. The revenue yield of taxation can be attributed to the fact that the tax provision are not enforced either on the account of inability of the administration to cope with the laws.

1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The main objective of this research work is to assess taxation and revenue generation in Edo Stat. Specifically, this study attempt to:
I. To examine the contribution of taxation on revenue generation in Edo Stat.
II. To ascertain the extent to which tax evasion and tax avoidance has affected negatively on revenue generation in Edo Stat.
III. To examine the extent to which taxation has contributed to the steady growth in Gross Domestic Product in Edo Stat.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
This study sets out to address the following questions.
I. To what extent has taxation contributed on revenue generation in Edo Stat?
II. To what extent has tax evasion and tax avoidance impacted negatively on revenue generation in Edo Stat?
III. To what extent has taxation contributed to the steady growth in Gross Domestic Product in Edo Stat?