Tax compliance behaviour of individual with business income in Malaysia: A conceptual paper
List of Authors
  • Puteri Nur Liana

Keyword
  • Tax Audit, Tax Compliance, Taxpayers Capability, Tax compliance Behaviour, Tax Information System, Tax Control Framework, Case Selection

Abstract
  • The individual group are the largest group of taxpayers which covers 82% of the total population of registered taxpayer in Malaysia. However, in terms of tax collection, it only covers 26% of the total collection in the year 2016. Despite being the largest group of registered taxpayer, the amount of tax collected are still relatively low compared to companies group. In Malaysia's, tax-to-GDP ratio was 13.6% in 2017, below the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average of 34.2%. In 2017, corporate income tax contributed the highest share of tax revenues in Malaysia which is about 41.5%. The second-highest share of tax revenues in 2017 comes from other taxes on goods and services (24.1%). What need to be highlighted is that personal income tax only contributed 16% share of tax revenues. This is much lower than OECD average of 24% (OECD, 2019), the lack of control and understanding in individual business setting has provided opportunity for businesses to create strategy to minimise or eliminate altogether their tax liabilities. Hence, this paper will focus on individual with business income since this group tend to involve in tax evasion much easier compared to salaried group. In the Self-Assessment System (SAS) setting, tax is collected based on the amount reported in the tax return form submitted by the taxpayer. To make sure that the tax collected are correct, tax audit is performed on a regular basis. Tax audit cases are not only selected randomly but also carefully chosen through risks identified from detail data analysis. However, the data provided in the tax return form are limited to determine the actual compliance risk of each taxpayer. The objective of this study is to examine the impact of individual perception on tax fairness and enforcement level, and the new factors in standpoint that may effects the attitude such as Dynamic Capability (DC) that exist in individual business settings and also social norms in determining the tax compliance behaviour. In addition, moderating effect of appointment of tax agent will be tested in the relationship between attitude and tax compliance behaviour. The targeted sample for this study is individuals with business income. Primary and secondary data will use to test hypothesises in this study. By identifying the tax compliance behaviour, a suitable compliance strategy can be enforced on a targeted taxpayer.

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