THE IMPACT OF DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS ON TAX COMPLIANCE BEHAVIOUR IN NIGERIA

This study investigates the impact of demographic factors (gender, age, education and residential location/government presence) on the informal sector operators, tax compliance behaviour in Nigeria. In line with the reviewed literatures that tax compliance behaviour could not only be approached from the economic factors perspective, the non-economic factors approach (demographic) was examined in this study. The method adopted entails the application of statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) and econometric techniques. The economic techniques involve descriptive statistics, correlation and regression used in analysing the data obtained. The results of the tests of the hypotheses suggest that a nonsignificant negative relationship exists: between gender and informal sector operators’ tax compliance, between age and informal sector operators’ tax compliance and between residential location/government presence and informal sector operators’ tax compliance. While a positive significant relationship exists between education and informal sector operators’ tax compliance. The implication of this is that demographic factor such as education can positively influence the compliance behaviour of informal sector operators’ taxpayers. Therefore, it was recommended amongst others that tax education should be incorporated in secondary schools and tertiary institutions syllabi in order to inculcate the culture of paying taxes in the students who are future potential taxpayers’.