INSTRUMENTS AND INSTITUTIONAL MECHANISMS FOR INCOME TAX ENFORCEMENT IN NIGERIA

A thorough understanding of legal and institutional framework for tax enforcement and their application to tax practice is a sine qua non for effective tax administration. In the last couple of years, events have revealed that tax administrators are exhibiting ignorance of the explicit procedures governing enforcement of tax. This is manifest in the application of tax enforcement method that is alien to relevant tax laws by revenue authority. To put the principles and procedures of income tax enforcement in their proper perspectives, this paper, apart from giving conceptual clarification of terms related to enforcement, examines sequentially various tax enforcement instruments and institutional mechanisms regulating them with the ultimate view of pointing out critically legal deficiencies in them. The paper finds that enforcement by distress is not the same with sealing up of business premises but tax administrators are employing the latter instead of the former .It is equally discovered that method of post-judgment execution provide d for by Companies Income Tax Act is alien to Nigerian civil jurisprudence. Finally, the paper finds that buck passing between Independent National Electoral Commission and courts on enforcement by tax clearance certificate is not in tandem with the relevant tax law. Consequently, the paper suggests urgent amendment of the relevant provisions of the tax law identified in this paper.