CORPORATE TAX AVOIDANCE OF LISTED FIRMS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

The study focuses on the long run corporate tax avoidance of listed firms in Nigeria with a view to examine the ability of listed firms to pay low amount of cash taxes in naira of pre-tax earnings over a long run period of twelve years. A sample of 19 listed firms were selected based on purposive sampling technique from the list of NSE 30 listed firms on the Nigeria stock exchange. The long-run cash effective tax rate developed by Dyreng, Hanlon, and Maydew (2008) to measure long run tax avoidance was adopted. The study finds that there is variation across the firms in tax avoidance at long run with some firms achieving a lower amount of cash taxes in naira of pre-tax earnings compared to others. The study concludes that firms in the consumer sector pay more taxes than financial service sector though financial service sector firms declare more profit before tax than the consumer sector firms. The study recommends than financial service sector firms should contribute more to education tax in Nigeria.