"IN A TAXING ACT, ONE HAS TO LOOK MERELY AT WHAT IS CLEARLY SAID. THERE IS NO ROOM FOR ANY INTENDMENT": A CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF STRICT CONSTRUCTIONISM OF TAXING ACT; NIGERIA IN PURVIEW.

The foundational principle for a charge undertax statutes is that no tax can be imposed on the subject without words in the Act clearly showing an intention to lay a burden upon him. In construing fiscal statutes to determine the liability of a subject to tax, one must have regard to the strict letter of the law – “there is no equity in tax”. The subject is not to be taxed unless the wording of the taxing statute unambiguously impose the tax upon him – this is the Literal Rule/Strict Constructionism approach of interpreting taxing statutes. However, in the light of realities and the peculiarities of emerging cases the courts have soon been tempted to moveaway from the traditional approach of literal interpretation of taxing Act which they consider as a device for tax avoidance to develop a new approach to construct tax statutes and fight tax avoidance schemes by going on voyage to determine the intention of the parliament (this is known as the purposive approach of interpretation). The impact of this development to Taxation law jurisprudence is that it has created a rather unbalance framework with regards to tax statutes construction. This paper is an attempt to appraise the popular notion that ‘there is no room for intendment’ in interpreting a taxing statute, in the light of purposive approach of tax statutes interpretation, substantiated with the aid of judicial authorities and academic reasoning on the subject matter.This paper also appraises the attitude of Nigerian courts in interpreting taxing statutesamidst the realities of the two contrasting approaches.