ABSTRACT

On January first,1994, a new term VAT was added to the economic lexicon of Nigerians. VAT which stands for Value Added Tax is a multistage consumption tax imposed on Value Added to foods as before and with the recent inclusion of newspapers, productions carried out in Nigeria economy as they are rendered. The introduction of this tax gave credence to the importance attached to taxation as one of the major source of revenue in the country and as an agent of social change. This study is therefore an attempt to appraise the problems any prospects of value added tax as an instrument of revenue generation with particular reference to FIRS in Abia Stale. To start with, the researcher had to go through all the available material on this subject and this involved reviewing textbooks, journals, newspapers, magazines and article dealing on value added tax and other related topics. The review was aimed at giving the reader a fair idea of views drawn out from other writers on the subject matter. The researcher's work evaluated three VAT offices of Federal Inland Revenue Service in Abia State. For the purpose of the analysis, different methods were used for the collection of data, such as oral interviews, questionnaire, observations as well as surveys. These formed the source of primary data. In the actual analysis of data and statistical tools, simple percentage were used to evaluate the responses received from the respondents through questionnaires, while the hypothesis formulated were subject to test of significance using the chi-square text. Some recommendations were made in the last chapter which could help harness the gains of the tax on one hand as well as to ameliorate the unidentified negative effects of the tax on the other. At the end of the study, the following research findings and recommendation were made: The administrative section of the board has sufficient personnel to rely on. The infrastructural facilities are adequate for the collection of VAT. The level of public awareness of VAT is not encouraging. All the organization that register for vat make remittance as at and when due. The research hereby recommend as follows: The administration machinery of VAT should be improved to eliminates leakage and other continued weakness. Vatable industries should be made to claim credit input tax, when the need arises.