Appraisal of Factors Influencing Tax Avoidance and Evasion in Nigeria

Abstract

Evidence from the literature confirms that in Sub-Saharan Africa, agriculture occupies a priority status in their national economies. It is also the leading economicactivity in the continent as it contributes up to 20 and 30 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product. Despite its immense contribution to the economy as a majorrevenue earner (at least in the immediate post colonial years), agriculture has been neglected by successive administrations in Nigeria. Further is the observationthat there exists a huge financing gap in agricultural financing in Nigeria. The recent microfinance policy that established microfinance banks to cater for thepoor, low income group and rural dwellers has been seen to be the efforts in the right direction among the scholars, professionals and practitioners in accounting,banking and finance. The extent to which farmers have benefited from the credit administration of Microfinance banks has not received much attention in theaccounting and finance literature. Structured questionnaire was used to elicit information from farmers who are customers to the selected microfinance banks inOsun state of Nigeria on their access to credits from the microfinance banks. Data were analysed using mean score ranking method and Z – score statistics at0.05 level of significance to analyse the impact of microfinance banks to agricultural development in Osun state of Nigeria. Findings show that the micro creditdelivery system of the Nigeria microfinance banks is significant to farmers operations in Osun state Nigeria in term of credit access, adequacy, timeliness of creditdelivery and convenient repayment term. It is suggested that the Microfinance policy be reviewed to ensure that microfinance banks give more attention tofarmers so as boost agricultural production and create more jobs in the country