PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES OF GOOD GOVERNANCE ON TAX COLLECTION: THE CASE OF REVENUE OFFICE OF ADDIS KIDAM TOWN, AMHARA NATIONAL REGIONAL STATE, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

This study attempted to investigate the practice and challenge of good governance in tax collection at the Addis Kidam Town Revenue Office of Awi Zone, Amhara region. This study endeavors to cover some of the necessary questions regarding assessing the perception of taxpayers concerning good governance practices, examine the extent to which the Addis Kidam town revenue office maintains good governance, and determine the major challenges of implementing good governance. The purpose of this study is to investigate transparency, accountability, participation, effectiveness, and efficiency in practice and their challenges because the application of good governance principles in tax administration leads to good governance and ultimately accomplishes sustainable development in a town community. In order to achieve the research objective, both qualitative and quantitative approaches with a descriptive design were employed. Besides, the study employed the data collected from key informant interviews, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, questionnaires, and document analysis. In line with this, through purposive sampling and simple random sampling, 214 tax payer heads were selected, and descriptive analyses were undertaken. The study finding that weak good governance practices; weak downward and upward accountability mechanism; no proper complain handling, poor transparency of information, inactive participation and less effective and efficient service delivery and competence problem in a town revenue office in the study area. Correspondingly, Corruption, weak monitoring and evaluation, inadequate institutional capacity in financial, material, and professional human resources, the absence of coordination from stakeholders and incentives, and low training were the challenges that impeded the overall practice of good town tax governance. A weak tax governance problem also exists in the study area. Therefore, so as to tackle the aforementioned problem, the researcher recommends that the district revenue office improve accountability, transparency, participatory mechanisms, provide effective service delivery, capacity building, monitoring, and evaluation, develop means of motivation, and collaborate with various stakeholders.