Tax Residency under Domestic Laws

The author demonstrates that in exercising income tax jurisdiction, the state can choose to have a link with the personality of the income-earner within its territory whether or not the income was derived from a source within its territory (residence-based taxation). No universal rules for determining the tax residence of a person (either natural or juristic) for tax purposes apply in all circumstances. Thus, the states have different definitional rules of residence as contained in their respective income tax legislation and as interpreted by their courts. The global economic integration makes taxpayers move freely and exploit ambiguity created by the divergence of the definition of the tax jurisdiction between the States. The book explores the possibility of achieving cooperation amongst the States in delimiting the scope of their substantive and enforcement tax jurisdiction without losing their sovereignty. The cooperation envisioned by this research is a departure from the traditional approach, where the focal point of achieving cooperation is either bilateral or multilateral tax treaties. The author argues that the cooperation could be achieved through comparative analysis of the definition rule to ascertain the level of convergence and divergence and how they could extend mutual respect for each other's tax sovereignty and balance their interests against that of the taxpayers in defining the tax residence. The book uses Nigeria and South Africa as a case study. Nigeria has adopted the residence-based system at the inception of its income tax system, while South Africa initially adopted the source-base system but later switched to the residence-based system.