TAXPAYER’S EDUCATION AND TAX COMPLIANCE IN KANO STATE

ABSTRACT Taxpayer education serves to create taxpayer awareness of laws and procedures, educate taxpayers on their tax responsibilities and rights, assist and motivate taxpayer to comply voluntarily, assist taxpayer on reporting the correct income and amount of tax, maintaining close relationship between the tax authority and the taxpayer continuously and instill public confidence in taxation system. Tax is very important aspect in any country because revenue collected from taxes enables a country to provide services for its citizens and also development of its economy revenue as it should, which is a significant problem to the country growth as a whole. Therefore, this study assessed the effects of taxpayer education on tax compliance in Kano State. The objective of the study was to determine the effects electronic media tax education, stakeholder sensitization programmes and effect of print media on tax compliance. The target population was people and business found In Kano State. This study adopted cross-sectional survey design; the population of this study was 21,615 taxpayer where a sample of 300 was selected. The study relied on data collected through questionnaires structured to meet the objectives of the study. The collected data was analyzed using both inferential and descriptive statistics through SPSS. The analysis showed that print media, stakeholder sensitization and electronic taxpayer education significantly and positively affects tax compliance. The study found out that electronic tax payer education significantly contributes to the improvement of tax compliance but stakeholder sensitization and print media taxpayer education does not affect tax compliance. The study further concludes that this tax payer education partially affects tax compliance; hence there are other factors which can contribute to improvement of tax compliance. The study further conclude that tax rates are too high which is one of the contributing factors to noncompliance, for the compliance to be improved tax laws must be respected. The study further concludes that there are some taxpayers who feel that it was unfair to pay taxes and dishonest tax collectors contribute to non-compliance. The study recommends that in order for KIRS to expand tax base and improve tax compliance, there is a need to seriously address wage levels in the long-term and improve tax sensitization. Such an approach will lay bare the fact that Kano Sate will not be able to increase income tax to a level where it is the primary source of taxation and this needs to be accepted by the Kano Sate government and incorporated into their spending plans. Additionally, it recommended that the Kano State government should increase the administrative capacity of KIRS through electronic tax sensitization since the study determined that it will lead to more than 42.8% of tax compliance and also providing education services to not only tax payers but also KIRS employees.