Government Accountability and Tax Revenue: Evidence from Nigeria

Abstract

The dire need to concentrate emphasis on, and increase the revenue of a nation, particularly from sources that are within her control, necessitated this study. The study submitted that, if governments are perceived to be accountable, more citizens will voluntarily pay their tax obligations. The perception that government is accountable lowers the necessity for coercion and costs of tax collection and improves revenue from taxation. Government accountability was proxied by corruption perception index (CPI) while tax revenue was represented by the total tax revenue generated by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) from 1995 to 2020. Objectives of this study were to ascertain the relationship between government accountability and tax revenue, and to determine their causal relationship. The OLS estimation and Granger causality test were used in the analysis. The study revealed that there is no significant predictive relationship between government accountability and tax revenue; and that neither taxation granger causes government accountability nor government accountability granger causes tax revenue. The study found that, in Nigeria, tax obligations are not voluntarily complied with; instead, taxpayers are compelled. When government unaccountability is greeted with the slightest form of civil disobedience, all manner of coercion is applied to citizens. The study recommended the construction of the institutional facility and systems with political legitimacy to generate revenues from citizens.