Design and Development of An E-Taxation System: April 2015
Design and Development of An E-Taxation System: April 2015
Design and Development of An E-Taxation System: April 2015
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Onuiri Ernest E.
Faroun Fikayo
Erhinyeme Ogheneovo
Jegede Ayodeji
Department of Computer Science,
Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State; Nigeria
Abstract
Tax is any form charge levied on a person or an institution by a
governing body or its equivalent such that defaulted payment is punishable
by law. The imposition of taxes and the institution of taxing is as old as
civilization itself cutting across religion, race and continental borders.
Prompt tax payment and reduced tax evasion is always a primary objective
of the government in most civilizations that exist today. The issue of tax
evasion has proven to be a difficult practice to curb even in nations with a
proper database of its citizenry and the current mode of tax payment is
redundant and hectic as ascertained through a survey of our case study. Some
of the challenges governmental bodies have to overcome in order to
encourage the prompt payment of taxes and effectively reduce evasion
includes, developing convenient payment methods and having proper records
keeping systems. This paper is a concise summary of how the continuous
development of computing science and its wide spread ability to be deployed
to solve a wide range of problems can be geared towards the development of
an electronic taxation system to assist government bodies with convenient
tax collection and record keeping. The waterfall methodology was selected
for system development. Goals to be achieved by the system are instant
access, improved productivity through efficient utilization of resources,
database creation and records management, simplification of operations,
reduced processing time, user friendliness, portability and flexibility for
further enhancement. The E-taxation is not a new system, but a rather local
solution to a problem with global purview. This system looks at how tax
payment can be encouraged through simplification and increased efficiency
in payment processing.
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1.0 INTRODUCTION
According to a world bank economic report on Nigeria published on
the 1st of May 2013, it was stated that 95% of the government’s budgeted
expenditure depended on its projected oil revenue based on current world oil
prices. It was also recommended in the report that the Federal Government,
through the improvement of the domestic tax system it can increase its
internal revenue and provide in the event of a fall in oil prices a financial
backup plan for the economy (The World Bank, 2013). Tax is a charge
imposed by a government on persons, entities or property, administered to
generate revenue for that government (Black, 1999). Tax is a common
source of income generation for financing government activities. Individuals
and organizations are expected to fulfill their obligations on tax payment as
required by law to give the government the financial power, amongst other
purposes of taxation. Effective taxation therefore becomes important as it is a
source of required financial power for a government to rule its territory.
There are two forms of taxation common to most countries, direct taxes to be
paid by the tax payer on his income, profit or asset owned. The other form,
indirect taxes is imposed on commodities before they get to the consumer,
and are to be paid by the consumer not as taxes but as a part of the selling
price per unit of the commodity (Money Control, 2013).
The Nigerian tax system is surrounded by countless problems which
include: Little data available on the history of tax revenues or tax payers due
to a lack of proper records keeping system (Federal Republic of Nigeria,
1997). A lack of comprehensive tax statistics and a centralized database for
the existing ones (Federal Republic of Nigeria, 2002). Deployment of limited
man power and other necessary resources into redundant roles and job
functions (Ariyo, 1997). Duplication of taxes and its negative effect on tax
payers a problem resulting from a clash in the governments’ fiscal
responsibility and its fiscal power (Odusola, 2002). Deliberate attempts by
tax payers to evade taxes (Odusola, 2003). The aim of the e-taxation system
is to provide the tax authority a database with details of taxpayers and their
transactions. This would reduce the issue of tax evasion and hence an
increase in government tax revenue. It would also allow taxpayers process
their transactions online without having to visit the office of the FIRS,
reducing the workload on the resources available to the FIRS and which
consequently give room for the re-allocation of freed-up resources. The
objectives considered during the development of the e-taxation system
include: Creation and management an effective and efficient database to
provide tax payers records, information/bio-data for easy referencing. The
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2.0 METHODOLOGY
System development methodology is an aggregate of methods used to
engage in the creation of information systems in a defined, organised and
stepwise manner, requiring stages of the creation cycle from conception to
completion, to be carried out orderly and in the confines of the methodology
being implemented (Geoffrey, 2004). Software development methodologies
include: prototyping, waterfall, rapid application development, spiral
methodology, extreme programming methodology, agile methodology,
iterative and incremental development methodology. The chosen
development methodology for the E-taxation system is the Waterfall model.
The waterfall development model was inspired by older engineering
disciplines (Royce, 1970). It was initially used to develop large scale
functional business systems (Geoffrey, 2004). Software development
methodologies include the definition of deliverables to be created by a
project team to use in the development and maintenance of an application
(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Office of Information Service ,
2008).
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3.4.1 SIMILARITIES
During the course of review, it was discovered that a larger portion of
the reviewed systems were developed in some sort of public, private
partnership between government bodies and information technology firms.
Also the scope of the systems were limited to the geographical boundaries in
which their governing bodies served. Essential similarities between the
reviewed systems which will be implemented in the proposed system
include:
i. Serving as record keeping instruments that can be used to monitor to
the transparency and efficiency of tax regulatory bodies.
ii. An inclusion of a system that will process financial instruments and
make tax payments easier for tax payers.
iii. SARS and HMRC also serve as means of providing and discovering
the latest news and information on taxes a function which will be
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3.4.2 DIFFERENCES
The EFTPS has the option of making or scheduling payments
through phone calls, mails and other offline methods not available in other
systems and will also not be included in the proposed system.
i. The HMRC has tax payment calculators with varying complexity.
This tax calculator function depends on data not readily available in
the proposed system’s operational environment. As such this function
will not be included in the proposed system.
ii. SARS interfaces with systems of other governmental bodies in some
symbiotic relationship whereby they provide one another necessary
information required to properly carry out their respective duties.
iii. All three systems cater for all forms of taxation while our system will
cater for only the Company Income Tax and Pay as You Earn.
Further analysis of the existing systems showed that they were
developed with heavy graphic content and media interfaces, thereby
increasing the bandwidth requirements of accessing these systems. The
proposed E-taxation was designed and developed to be significantly text-
based and with minimal graphic content. This will consequently produce two
positive outcomes, as follows:
i. A reduction in its Internet access cost. This is in view of the fact that
developing countries have poor Internet infrastructures. This is can be
proven with data provided NET INDEX in their bandwidth
availability/cost survey, the United States has a speed of 35.15Mbps
costing 3.51 dollars while the United Kingdom has a speed of
30.84Mbps costing 2.43 dollars. African countries like South Africa
has a speed of 7.04Mbps costing 19.06 dollars and Nigeria has a
speed of 5.53Mbps costing upwards 115 dollars. In view of the
foregoing, the proposed system is expected to work efficiently in
such climes without undermining user or system requirements.
ii. An improvement to its search engine optimization. A proper SEO
improves your ranking on the result page of search engines. A top tier
ranking would increase user awareness, trust and accessibility
through search engines which in turn grows traffic.
3.4.3 LIMITATIONS
Also the scope of the systems were limited to the geographical
boundaries in which their governing bodies served also their development
was limited to the level of support provided by the tax regulating body in the
their respective environment. The structure and function of these regulatory
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bodies were sometimes reflected in these system and as such their limitations
were extended. So also prevailing tax laws and rates in these countries
determined the extent of their functions and adoption.
3.4.4 DEDUCTIONS
The review of closely related works highlighted a common consensus
that developers of the other systems were either employed, contracted or had
the backing of the federal authorities regulating taxes during their system
development. It was also discovered that the structure of their systems, its
functionalities and limitations depended heavily on the tax system created
and regulated by the federal tax authorities. Their systems are largely mock-
ups of existing manual tax systems or institutions in the country of
implementation. On visiting the Federal Inland Revenue Service to ascertain
their level of support we discovered that we won’t have the level of support
required to develop a fully-fledged system to accommodate the entire tax
system, based on this we have limited the objectives of the system to cover
company and Pay As You Earn (PAYE) taxes. The system will require
companies to register their staff on the proposed portal, providing necessary
details pertaining to their earnings which will be used to carry-out and verify
tax claims. This will reduce a lot of paper work currently done by both the
companies and the federal tax authorities. It will also help the FIRS estimate
their monthly and annual incomes. Companies will also allow users to
schedule tax payment before the due date. As a result of the initial
registration companies will be able to estimate the amount due for tax
payment as records of their employee earnings are readily available, it will
also be easier for the FIRS to issue tax clearance certificate to those
requesting it as they’re records of payments will be available and accessible
as needed. News and updates such as changes in tax policy will also be
available on the system and those of particular high importance will be
broadcasted to individual user profiles.
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be” process having established the “as is”. As earlier mentioned these
systems were developed in some form of government-private partnership,
hence developing such an advanced system with robust capabilities would
require massive support from the tax authority which is not forthcoming. The
alternative is a scaled down system that accommodates the core functions of
the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and serves as a viable alternative
to its customers. The system would significantly reduce the number of
journeys users would have to make to the tax office in processing their tax
payment. Individuals would register on the system via a registration portal,
providing necessary details. On confirmation of the details provided by the
tax authority the administrator would verify the individual’s registration
details and an account will be created. Individuals will have the ability to use
the system to schedule taxes and make payment. For companies the super
administrator will have to create a company account with a single company
administrator. The company administrator in turn then creates accounts for
all the staffs in the company. The company administrator also schedules and
makes payments on behalf of the staffs and can update their details when
necessary. The super administrator will have also a portal that will display
the registration and payment details of all users.
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details with the tax authorities. Figure 3 shows the use case
diagram of a user with access to the individual page, the actions he
can perform and the views available to him/her.
LOG IN
ADDS
COMPANY
ADMIN
VALIDATES
REGISTRATION
VIEWS
PAYMENT
VIEWS ALL
USERS
LOG OUT
LOG IN
ADDS
EMPLOYEES
SCHEDULES
AND MAKES
PAYMENT
DELETES
EMPLOYEESS
EDITS
EMPLOYEE
DETAILS
LOG OUT
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REGISTERS
LOG IN
SCHEDULES
AND MAKES
PAYMENT
EDITS
DETAILS
LOGOUT
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The test is simply the execution of the implemented application with sample
data to ensure that all specified objectives have been met appropriately in
order to ensure a high quality, user friendly application. The different tests to
be carried out would be expatiated further in the subsequent sections.
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Figure 6 shows the bank_report database table and this contains and
generates a monthly report detailing all the transactions carried out by each
user of the system.
Figure 7 shows the salaries database table which contains how much
each staff in an organization earns.
Figure 8 the user database table contains information about the users
of the system.
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Figure 11 shows the error thrown by the system in the event that the
login information provided by any user is incorrect.
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Figure 14 shows the Entries module which allows you enter starting
information for staff members, banks, departments and sub-departments in
the organization, designations (positions in the organization) etc.
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Figure 15 shows the Basic Salaries module which allows you to input
basic salaries for different positions in the organization.
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Figure 18 shows the Reports module allows you to view and print
reports of the financial activities of the organizations. This is where you see
the tax deductions of employees reflected in their pay slip which you can
print if you want to. Also, the company’s Tax is also shown here if you go to
Payroll.
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Figure 19 shows the Staff add and Staff edit page, containing input
fields that would hold staff information.
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6.1 SUMMARY
The E-Taxation system offers multiple solutions to both sides of the
taxation system. The tax collector’s job is more effectively carried out as
access to data required to determine the volume of taxes currently paid is
readily available and can confidently estimate deficits. The tax organization
is seen as more transparent and effective in carrying out its duties as it has
records to support stated facts in its report. The tax payers in general are
more receptive to taxation as the whole process is convenient and flexible. It
doesn’t require visits to the tax office. Even the government as a whole
would benefit from the implementation of this system as it would have the
ability to properly prepare its budget based on expected income, since it has
historical records and a database showing payments trends. The system can
also be used by the government to measure the level of the public’s reception
of changes in tax laws, rates and their responses to the changes.
6.2 RECOMMENDATIONS
The system meets desired expectations but would perform better if
the following recommendations and suggestions are considered:
i. The software is designed to accommodate the needs of its scope of
study and as such implementation outside this scope could be limited.
But bearing in mind possible implementation outside the defined
scope of study, it was developed using Object Oriented Programming
concepts and as such can easily be modified to accommodate the
needs of implementation environment.
ii. The E-taxation system can also be interfaced with other
governmental agencies and institution to furnish them with
information that wouldn’t necessarily be available to them.
iii. The E-taxation system should be implemented in a secured server
environment as it contains several important information about its
users.
iv. The E-taxation system can also be used by the government provide
more accurate estimates about the income pattern of its citizens and
their response to the implementation of new tax policies.
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6.4 CONCLUSION
The E-taxation is not a new system, but a rather local solution to a
problem with global purview. This system looks at how tax payment can be
encouraged through simplification and increased efficiency in payment
processing. Individuals can depend on this platform to carry out their duties
as citizens.
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