CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
The history of Taxation in Nigeria is traceable to the reforms initiated in the first decade of the 20th Century in Northern Nigeria. The High Commissioner of the Northern Protectorate, Sir Fredrick Lugard issued the Stamp Duties Proclamation 1903 and followed it with the Native Revenue Proclamation in 19061. The Native Revenue Proclamation 1906 systematized all pre-colonial taxes that existed in Northern Nigeria by defining taxable rates, procedures for assessment and collection as well as penalties for default. This made away with the arbitrariness that was the case in the pre-colonial era and introduced the four certainties essential in modern tax practice: what to pay, when to pay, where and who to pay to. In this Thesis, Federal Inland Revenue Service shall hereinafter be referred to as ‗the Service‘, the Federal Board of Inland Revenue shall hereinafter be referred to as ‗The Board‘. The Federal Inland Revenue (Establishment) Act 2007 shall hereinafter be referred to as the ‗FIRS Act‘. The amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorate to form the colonial federation of Nigeria in 1914 led to the Native Revenue Ordinance 1917, which was extended from the Northern territories to the Western2 and Eastern territories in 1918 and 1927 respectively. Since then, there has been a steady progress in that regime with various attempts to modernize, expand, reform and improve the process, procedure and sanctions inherent in the system of taxation in Nigeria.
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