Assessment of Taxpayers Perception and the Level of Compliance in Paying Land Use Charge in Anambra State, Nigeria

Abstract

The emphasis in most economies is on diversifying the sources of government revenue to avoid overdependence on a particular income stream like crude oil. A diversified economy has a number of different revenue streams to fall back on in the eventual failure of one. Some states in Nigeria have realized the value of land in their domain as a great source of internally generated revenue. Anambra State Government in 2011 consolidated land based taxes into a new land use charge known as Anambra State Property and Land Use Charge (APLUC) in an attempt to shore up its revenue base. The anticipated success of APLUC did not materialize thus the study sets to evaluate APLUC collections with a view to assessing the taxpayer perception and the level of compliance in paying the charges. The study adopted a survey design to generate data from respondents; tax payers, staff APLUC and Estate Surveyors and Valuers. Information obtained was presented by the use of descriptive and inferential statistics. A 5- point Likert scale was adopted to measure the weight of their views. The hypothesis on if the level of compliance by the tax payers is independent on the perception of the APLUC was analyzed using One- Sample Chi- Square Test The respondents opined that they are faced with double taxation. They are also of the view that the amount they pay is quite high and they do not believe it is a reflection of their property value. The test of hypothesis result gives a level of significance (p-value) of 1.000 which is greater than 0.05, indicating the level of compliance by the tax payers is independent on the perception of APLUC. Strategies that will impact positively on tax payers perception of APLUC is therefore imminent in order to achieve the internally generated revenue drive initiated by the government.