Sustainability of Enterprises: Does Taxation Make Any Sense?
Beyond business competitiveness is the subject of sustainability wrapped within the strategic context of the 21st century and future business environment. This paper therefore made an empirical investigation into the strategic use of taxes and nexus to sustainability in contemporary small and medium scale enterprises in Nigeria. An attempt was made at highlighting the types of taxes collected in the enterprises, level of compliance and the link with sustainability of the enterprises. This was achieved using a cross-sectional and survey research design directed at 120 small and medium scale enterprises by means of a well-structured questionnaire. Findings showed that over 10 types of taxes were paid by the SMEs with compliant level averaging 48.9%. Taxation showed a significant relationship with sustainability of the SMEs; though taxation had a higher significant effect on economic sustainability than social and environmental sustainability. The research concluded that though taxation was diligently being collected in the study area, the level of compliance was relatively low and efforts towards creating understanding and achieving higher compliance rate is indispensable for birthing more sustainable businesses as well as sustainable business environment. Keywords: Taxation, Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs), Sustainability, Tax Compliance. JEL Codes: H25, H26, Q01, 010