Introduction
In his amusing collection of essays, Essays in Satire, Father Ronald Knox included one entitled “The New Sin”. This told how an announcement appeared in the Morning Post to the effect that on a particular evening in the year, a lecture would be delivered in the Albert Hall in London entitled “The New Sin”. Came the evening and naturally, the Albert Hall was packed. The vast audience awaited the arrival of the lecturer in a mood of suppressed excitement. A short stocky middle-aged man, apparently of European origin came on to the podium. He had endured, he explained, great torment of mind. Should he or should he not disclose to his audience, so obviously eager to learn the details of the New Sin. After much heart-searching, he had reached the reluctant conclusion that it would be morally indefensible to expose them to the temptations inherent in such knowledge. He would bid them goodnight. He had nothing more to say.
Similar disappointment must await those who entertained any expectation of a searching denouncement of the latest fashions in taxation, as also those who nourished more modest hopes at least hearing a coherent exposition of the current state of the law. The truth is that just at present, the law relating to tax is in what can only be described as a Heraclitan state of flux. Questions rather than answers abound. How has the law got to the point which it has reached? In what direction is it likely to proceed from here? Just like the “New Sin”, very little locomotion, if any at all, had taken place in taxation since the case of Marina Nominees Ltd. v. Federal Board of Inland Revenue [1986] NWLR 48. This apparent “reluctance” simply confirms that the Nigerian courts have not heeded the admonition of the court in the United States in Batman v Commissioner (5th Cir 1951) 189F (2nd) 107 at 10-111 that:
If courts and judges were a little wise, or not so wise; if we could see, as we should see, face to face, or though not as through a glass darkly, not quite so clearly as we sometimes erroneously think we see; if we fully understood semasiology and the uses and abuses of words; we should be as little troubled, should have as little difficulty, in piercing through the name ‘partnership’ to the facts in family partnership cases… If knowing, or using, a little less of technical legal reasoning, we knew and used a little more of common sense; if as child, in the story of the Emperor’s Garment, saw through the pretence to the fact, that the Emperor, in reality, had no garment on; if in short, we could see this case, as it really is, we could easily see that what is presented as a partnership here is really not one at all. It is merely an arrangement for shoring up and expanding the family fortunes at the expense of the tax collector.
The case of Multipurpose Ventures Ltd. and 57 Ors v. Attorney General of Rivers State and 3 Ors provides another starting point in which the courts should make resounding statements of principle and largely attempt to focus on the tax issues which sadly have always been avoided by our courts. The questions left unanswered and the levels of reasoning in tax cases largely ignored in the Marina Nominee’s case are still without comprehensive answers. In this situation therefore, the Multipurpose Ventures case must be seen for what it is; a sad error of judgement. The case follows the unfortunate trend taken in the Marina Nominees of deciding the issues on some other grounds other than on taxation on which the case arose. This seeming lack of will (or is it ability?) to confront tax issues in matters in which it is manifestly and apparently the issue cannot but confound students of Nigerian tax jurisprudence as to what could be the real reason for side-tracking tax issues in matter coming before the Nigerian courts. Perhaps, as to the reasons, we may yet come to agreement with the words of Justice Akinola Aguda: What has become of grave importance in Africa – but here I shall confine myself to Nigeria – is that the emergence of military and dictatorial governments in this continent has brought the positivist theories into focus, and has caused alarm not only in the minds of progressive jurists but also in the minds of the general public. England and some other European countries at least since after the Second World War have been able to contain the positivist concept of law, thanks to their in-built and highly developed democratic practices. Here in Nigeria, no such practices have
Continue reading/Download Article below:
[pdf-embedder url=”https://lawbreed.blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/JUDICIAL-REVIEW-IN-NIGERIAN-TAXATION.pdf” title=”JUDICIAL REVIEW IN NIGERIAN TAXATION”]
[mks_button size=”medium” title=”Click Here To Download Article” style=”squared” url=”https://lawbreed.blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/JUDICIAL-REVIEW-IN-NIGERIAN-TAXATION.pdf” target=”_self” bg_color=”#000000″ txt_color=”#FFFFFF” icon=”” icon_type=”” nofollow=”0″]
