Articles in the Business Day Online and the Voice of Nigeria show an extreme low level of tax payment compliance in Nigeria. Nigeria is ranked 3^rd worst globally in the time it takes tax payers to comply, followed only by Bolivia and Brazil. The article refers to research done by the World Bank Group and PWC in the report “Paying Taxes 2015: The global picture”. This report measures the ease of paying taxes across 189 economies.

In Nigeria it takes the taxpayer an average of 908 hours to comply, compared to 224 hours in Ghana, 202 hours in Kenya and 200 hours in South Africa. This evidently signals challenges ahead for the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) in meeting the federal government mandate of shoring-up tax revenue and improving on the country’s tax administration. However, this is quite important since the era of absolute dependency on oil proceeds seems to be over, with over 60 percent decline in oil price.

Read more on:
– http://voiceofnigeria.org.ng/nigeria-ranked-3rd-worst-globally-in-tax-payment-compliance/
and
– http://businessdayonline.com/2015/09/nigeria-3rd-worst-globally-in-tax-payment-compliance/

– http://download.pwc.com/ie/pubs/2014-pwc-ireland-paying-taxes-2015.pdf