This study explores the impact of complexity upon unintentional non-compliance behaviour for personal taxpayers in Australia. This area of research did not appear to have been previously studied in an Australian context and in this respect, the study represents an original contribution. While studies have been conducted both in Australia and overseas, they have generally been directed at other types of compliance behaviour and tend to be inconclusive in their findings. According to the compliance literature, there appeared to be little consensus of opinion on the factors that determined behaviour and appropriate research methods. It emerged that more narrowly-defined studies with stronger research methods offered potential for furthering knowledge in this field. Thus the study focused on one behavioural outcome and one type of taxpayer, using a multi-paradigm research method. Unintentional non-compliance, as an outcome, was selected as it appeared to hold promise for improvements in overall compliance to be readily made, provided its causes were understood. Complexity was considered to be the most likely cause of unintentional non-compliance, and those who prepared their own income tax return, the group likely to be most affected. The study used both a quantitative and qualitative component from which a number of convergent results emerged. These included that the major cause of complexity was the ambiguity of tax laws and the volume of explanatory material required. Further, personal taxpayers were committed to compliance even though they regarded the system as less than fair. Together, complexity and commitment to compliance caused taxpayers to experience unnecessary compliance costs. Where taxpayers completed their own return, complexity resulted in a high level of errors that generally resulted in an overstatement of tax liability. In addition, some taxpayers chose to be over-compliant as a means of dealing with complexity and commitment. It was concluded that complexity compromised the integrity of the Australian income tax system by imposing an unfair burden on personal taxpayers in respect of both tax paid and compliance costs incurred. However, there appeared to be little, if any, financial incentive for the tax authority to address the causes of complexity for personal taxpayers.

The increasing level of non-compliance with payment demands for local property taxes by Malaysian local authority taxpayers over the past decade has given rise to the need to study the efficiency and productivity of the tax administration system a high priority. This important and sensitive issue has not been given the attention that it deserves. Little empirical research on the administration of, and voluntary compliance in, the Malaysian local taxation system been undertaken and this has shaped the motivation for this study, which represents the first detailed analysis of these issues. Studies on taxpayer compliance behaviour primarily centre on the income tax system and are mainly based on two models. Firstly, the financial self-interest model and secondly, a model that not only includes economic variables, but also other variables such as demographic, noncompliance opportunities, attitudes and perceptions of taxpayers and the structure of the tax system. The model designed in this work builds on this latter concept to include two further variables - namely quality of service and financial information. Two aspects of 'assessment tax 1 collection in Malaysian local authorities are explored in detail. These are, the efficiency and productivity of the assessment tax administration system, and assessment taxpayer compliance behaviour in a sample of Malaysian local authorities. The results of this study indicate that there is a significant difference in terms of the efficiency and productivity of the assessment tax administrative systems between local authorities. The study demonstrates that authorities with high collection performance are more efficient and productive when compared to authorities with medium and low tax collection performances. In general, many of the factors identified with efficiency and effectiveness of the assessment tax administration are consistent with the attributes found in the income tax system. In addition, new factors associated with a high-commitment work system approach (Beer ef a/., (1984) and Walton (1985)) are used in the study to explain the performance of local authorities with high tax collection rates. No previous study has combined all aspects of the above variables in investigating the efficiency and productivity of local tax administration systems. The findings support the model of taxpayer compliance behaviour designed in this work. These indicate that taxpayers in local authorities with high tax collection performance have positive perceptions towards the items listed in the model. In addition, importantly, the majority of the respondents to this study perceived that the presence of financial information might influence their compliance behaviour toward assessment tax. This research has revealed that the attributes of local authorities with high collection performance correspond to earlier studies based on income tax systems. In addition, however, the findings highlight the importance of such factors as the quality of service delivery to taxpayers and work system design in motivating employees to collect local tax revenues. Furthermore, it provides strategic information to all parties involved in the local taxation collection process, especially those local authorities, which are currently confronted with high levels of uncollected assessment tax revenue. Specifically the research has significant implications for the role of government in Malaysia (especially state government) in monitoring assessment tax systems, the work of local authorities and implications for taxpayers' voluntary compliance behaviour. This work is expected to make a significant contribution towards building a unified efficient theory of local taxpayer compliance.

Tax revenue forms the backbone of the South African economy. Although the tax gap in South Africa has shrunk in recent years, there is still a large tax gap in South Africa. Hence, there is an urgent need to enhance taxpayer compliance. The South African Revenue Service’s (SARS’s) image in the community is a key driver of voluntary taxpayer compliance. The quality of the services provided by SARS is therefore crucial, as service quality directly affects SARS’s image in the community and thus voluntary tax compliance. The objective of the present research was therefore to establish the perceptions that tax practitioners hold with regard to the services rendered by SARS in order to develop a service quality model that can be used to measure SARS’s service quality continuously. The development of a service quality model for the assessment of the services provided by SARS is justified, because it is an essential means to improving the services that SARS provides and therefore also voluntary compliance. The present research defined services, quality, service quality and perceived service quality on the basis of a literature review. These definitions served as a theoretical underpinning for the development of the proposed service quality model. The literature review suggested that a user-based approach to quality was the most relevant approach to this study and that it is important to build the “lens of the customer”. In order to develop the specific “lens of the customer” needed to evaluate the services of SARS, an in-depth, qualitative approach was required to identify a comprehensive range of determinants that potentially drive service quality in the revenue service industry and setting. One such qualitative method is the critical incident technique, which was chosen as the method to be used for building the “lens of the customer” to measure tax practitioners’ evaluations of the quality of the services SARS provides. The critical incident technique relies on a set of procedures to collect comments on service experiences, to perform a content analysis and to classify the observations of service experiences. The critical incident data were collected by means of open-ended questionnaires which tax practitioners registered with SARS were asked to complete, first in a focus group and then individually, using an e-mailed questionnaire. The main data collection instrument was administered by SARS to all tax practitioners registered with SARS country-wide. The data analysis of the responses provided by the tax practitioners involved three processes. The first was the identification of usable critical incidents, the second was the development of a classification scheme for the content analysis and the third was a content analysis of the critical incidents that had been identified. After a content analysis process that involved the preparation of summaries of the frequencies of the responses in accordance with a relevant classification scheme, a process of natural language argument was used to convert the data analysis results and the relevant elements of the theory from the literature survey into two proposed models, one for the traditional services and one for the electronic services provided by SARS. These service quality models can be used as a basis for studies to establish the perceptions of tax practitioners with regard to the quality of SARS’s services. The conceptual models of service quality that were proposed should also enable SARS to identify quality problems and assist SARS in planning for the launch of a quality improvement programme, and thereby improving the efficiency and overall performance of SARS. Copyright / Thesis (DCom)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Taxation / unrestricted

Thesis (M.Com. (Taxation))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Accountancy, 2017 / The Tax Administration Act 28 of 2011 is the most recent complete tax act to guide tax administration in South Africa and came into operation on 1 October 2012. The changes in the penalty regime in South Africa was that the understatement penalties, in sections 222 and 223 of the Tax Administration Act, replaced the additional tax that was previously levied in terms of section 76 of the Income Tax Act 58 of 1962. Understatement penalties are levied when a taxpayer understates his tax payable for a particular tax period. The understatement penalties are jointly determined by the behaviour of the taxpayer and other objective criteria that are listed in a table contained in section 223(1) of the Tax Administration Act. The report will focus on comparing the understatement penalties levied in South Africa and comparing it with understatement penalties levied in the United States of America (USA), Australia (AUS) and the United Kingdom (UK). The comparison will be used to determine how the understatement penalties are imposed in different cases and to determine if there are improvements that can be made to the current understatement penalties levied in South Africa. Keywords understatement penalty; understatement; behaviour; conduct; penalty; Tax Administration Act, United States of America (USA); United Kingdom (UK); Australia (AUS); South Africa (SA) / GR2018

The level of taxpayer compliance has steadily decreased over the years. Individual taxpayers failed to report approximately $100 billion in federal taxes due on legal income received in 1989. The compliance gap is large enough to greatly reduce the federal government deficit. Studies employing psychological cognitive structure approaches to analyzing taxpayer compliance and attempting to increase taxpayer compliance employ theories related to equity sensitivity, attitude formation, and change. These studies generally examine relationships between compliance and socioeconomic and situational variables. Appeals to a taxpayer's moral obligation to pay taxes have been studied as a means to change taxpayer attitudes and intentions and thereby increase compliance. The present study sought to determine if taxpayer compliance could be enhanced by sanction threats or by appeals to conscience. The study also endeavored to discover if compliance differed between various types of taxpayers. These individual differences were posited to cause taxpayers to react differently to alternative types of interventions aimed at increasing compliance to income tax law. A laboratory study was designed to gauge a subject's sensitivity to equity, administer intervention techniques, and measure compliance and attitude toward taxation. The data were analyzed using Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA). Although the results of the study showed no significant main effect for treatment type, a significant main effect (p = .0075) was found for Equity Sensitivity type when the scenario depicting Overstating Business Expenses was the dependent variable in the design. There were no significant main effects for Equity Sensitivity type or treatment type when the six attitude items were used as the dependent variables in a MANOVA. / Ph. D.

The aim of this thesis was to analyse and compare tax morale and its determinants in South Africa and Zimbabwe, as well as in Zimbabwe in different economic environments. The study applied the standard models of tax evasion, game theory, prospect theory, agent-based theory and slippery slope framework to explain the variability in the determinants of tax morale between South Africa and Zimbabwe under different economic and political environments. The study becomes novel in that it provides a comparative analysis of the determinants of the tax morale between Zimbabwe and South Africa under contrasting economic and political time scales. The study also tested a new variable, namely hunger, on how it affects tax morale in Zimbabwe and South Africa. The study was guided by quantitative research which was used to inform the study. Data was collected using questionnaires from the 2010-2014 and 2017-2020 World Values Survey (WVS). For Zimbabwe, Wave 6 and Wave 7 had a sample size of 1500 and 1200 respectively. The Wave 6 survey for South Africa had 3531 participants. Data was analysed using STATA software 2013 Version. The study’s dependent variable, tax morale and independent variables included marital status, age, income level, employment and religion among others, and analysed them using the Ordered Logit Model. The Ordered Logit Model was used to empirically model the effects of the identified variables on tax morale. The study concludes with an understanding of how tax morale and its determinants is crucial for governments in their bid to boost voluntary compliance. Also, different economic milieus for a particular country affect the level of tax morale significantly. Tax morale was established to be high when Zimbabwe was experiencing economic growth due to the introduction of multi-currency, herein called the dollarization period, and the opposite was true for the post-dollarization era. Surprisingly, the study’s results showed that Zimbabweans have a higher tax morale than South Africans, who have better standards of living. In addition, the determinants of tax morale also differ from one economic situation to another and from one country to another. Corruption, which is a menace in both countries under study, has proven to be an important factor that influences tax morale. Results of all the models show that demographic factors have little effect on tax morale. The study introduced an important variable of hunger in its analysis of determinants of tax morale. Though this variable was insignificant for South Africa, the study showed that there is a negative relationship between hunger and tax morale for Zimbabwe in both economic situations. Based on the thesis’s findings, policy makers should consider the eradication of corruption and hunger in order to boost tax morale, which in turn improves tax compliance. Also, policy makers should include improvement in the perception of democracy in the mix of enhancement strategies of tax compliance. / Economics / D. Com. (Economics)

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Technology: Business Administration, Durban University of Technology, 2012. / In conversation, people often base their arguments on the assumption that the knowledge that one has about a subject influences one’s attitude about that subject. From this they deduce that education would alter the attitude that people have towards that subject; taxation is no different. Its complexity and equity are often used as major points of discussion. This researcher chose to study income tax to determine if the knowledge that South Africans have of taxation in general influences their attitude towards taxation. It also determined which biographical details of people in South African influence their knowledge of, and their attitudes towards income tax. It also tried to lay a foundation for future students in this field broad field of accounting who may continue this investigation so as to build a knowledge base of the subjects in the accounting fields. A questionnaire was designed by asking registered master’s students in taxation to determine the major questions to be asked about the various taxation acts to establish their knowledge and attitudes. The additional information about other types of taxation was to be used in future research. These questions were discussed by all full-time staff and the questionnaire was limited to 20 questions in each category. A pilot study was then undertaken after which questions were further refined or deleted. The population consisted of all the people living in South Africa. Within each of the nine provinces in South Africa a convenience sample was chosen. To each of these members of the sample a self-administered questionnaire was given. The raw data was captured using SPSS and then analysed extensively. The results showed that knowledge of income tax was affected by age, race, and level of education, type of occupation the person is in, the province a person lived in and the income they earned. Attitudes towards income tax were affected by age, race, occupation of the person, the province they come from and the income they earned. The research indicated that there was relationship of 40 to 49 percent between the various biographical details of people in South African and the knowledge that they had of various sections of income tax act. There was also a 29 to 33 percent relationship between the biographical details of people in South Africa and the attitudes they have towards various statements about income tax. There was a 20 to 30 percent relationship between the knowledge that respondents had of income tax and their attitude towards income tax.

Traditional models of tax evasion cannot explain why most people comply with their taxes. It has been proposed that taxpayers may have an intrinsic motivation (or willingness) to comply with taxes - Tax Morale. Empirical studies found that trusting government, upholding religious beliefs, and supporting democratic regimes, increase individual Tax Morale. Based on those results and drawing from related literature in Political Science, this study tests the role of trusting government institutions delivering public goods to taxpayers, ideological beliefs, individual support for political regimes, and upholding post-materialist values, on Tax Morale. Results for individuals living in democratic countries show a positive relationship between trust in government institutions and upholding democratic values on Tax Morale; a negative relationship between upholding ideological (conservative) beliefs and Tax Morale, and no relationship between upholding post-materialist values and Tax Morale. Results for individuals living under non-democratic regimes differ in some respects; whereas support for democracy is related with higher Tax Morale, other results - trust in government and ideological beliefs - differ from theoretical expectations. Overall, higher trust in government increases willingness to comply with taxes, and support for democracy elicits higher Tax Morale.

The purpose of this study is to determine the effect tax complexity has on taxpayers' understanding of the tax law. The individual income tax system in the United States is based on self assessment by the taxpayer. A self assessing system requires a high level of voluntary compliance by the participants. Taxpayers who file returns on time and file correctly are considered to be in compliance with the tax law. A taxpayer who cannot understand the rules for tax reporting logically does not have the ability to comply with the law. A tax system predicated on the presumption that the average taxpayer can understand and comply with the tax rules must not become so complex that the taxpayer is forced into either seeking external help or not fully complying. The question arises, does complexity affect the ability of taxpayers to understand, and thus comply with, the tax system?

This research explores the impact of complexity in federal income tax laws on taxpayer compliance. The primary research question is: Is complexity in the tax law associated with noncompliance? The research is unique in that previous work has not yet demonstrated an a priori circumstance in which taxpayers do not comply with the law when compliance would be in their economic self-interest. "Economic self-interest" is narrowly construed in this study, being defined as an individual's utility for saving tax dollars. "Complexity" is operationalized by the system of nonresident taxation. A situation is investigated wherein a set of taxpayers do not comply, when there is complexity in the tax law, even though compliance would reduce their tax liability. Examining compliance in this setting renders it unlikely that the confound opportunity to evade is related to observed noncompliance. The results indicate complexity is the key explanatory variable for noncompliance found in this study. / Ph. D.