VALUE ADDED TAX ACT AND PHARMACEUTICAL PRACTICE IN NIGERIA : THE TAX COMPLIANCE PERSPECTIVE

There are huge opportunities for us as a people to become a leading nation in healthcare. But we cannot just tap into it by mere wish. We can only do it by sacrifice. Tax is all about people honestly sacrificing for others to achieve a common good for all. Value Added Tax Act compliance may well be at least one of the vehicles to raise public fund for building local technology capacity in our healthcare system and to develop solutions on pharmaceuticals and medical consumables, and the health sector component of the Economic Sustainability Plan (ESP). This technical paper therefore, discusses major provisions of the contemporary Value Added Tax Act and the need for the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria to comply with them in order to achieve effective public healthcare delivery. It is the assertion of this paper that, since the focus of pharmacy practice is on achieving effective healthcare delivery through technological revolution, and it takes raising public fund to attain it, hence, complying with the tax laws in Nigeria will effectively contribute towards making the dreams come true. This paper firmly abreast to the fact that pharmaceutical companies that are tax compliant also tend to be World Health Organization compliant. Thus, a nexus does exist between Value Added Tax Act compliance and attaining technological revolution in pharmaceutical practice in Nigeria. It is as against the backdrops that this paper purports to encourage Value Added Tax Act compliance in pharmaceutical practice in Nigeria, which would in turn, optimize tax revenue collection and voluntary compliance that can make taxation the pivot of national healthcare development. The paper employs secondary model of data collection and recommends the need to introduce taxation as a mandatory part of citizenship education in Pharmacy and other related medical courses at tertiary institution in Nigeria