Tax Audit Administration: Object and Processes a Conceptual Review

This publication is borne out of the necessity to examine the object and processes of Tax Audit programs. This becomes very apt and very timely due to the situation of dwindling government revenue as well as continuous deficit national budget. The major objective of this article is to present a conceptual framework through in-depth review, with a view to projecting the potential revenue that is collectible if the tax audit program is well-articulated. The problem here is the fact that available revenue is no longer sufficient to meet up with the responsibility of governance in Nigeria. The deployment of a tax audit strategy is to an extent dependent on your understanding of ‘tax gap’’ and the attendant peculiarities of nations in the different tax gap categories. The novel approach of this research is found in the fact that no researcher has established any link between tax audit and tax gap. The article has established that the larger the tax gap, the larger the potential for better tax audit yield. The methodology is to deploy an aggressive tax audit program for nations with a wide tax gap for optimal tax revenue yield. The article recommends to the Nigerian government and the government of nations a well-developed, intelligence-based, tax audit program which is automated and implemented by professionally qualified personnel. We conclude by exposing the level of potentiality that is achievable through a knowledge-based tax audit strategy.