MEDIATING EFFECT OF THE E-COMMERCE ENTREPRENEUR VOLUNTARY TAX COMPLIANCE BEHAVIOUR: SPSS PROCESS MACRO

Main Article Content

ADIEBAH BINTI AHMAD, NORAZA BINTI MAT UDIN, RUSNIZA BINTI ABDUL RAHMAN

Abstract

The digital economy, including e-commerce, is expanding in modern life, making it possible for anybody to commence an online business and engage in tax evasion and non-compliance. However, IRBM consistently encourages taxpayers to voluntarily comply with tax laws, improves their access to tax services and provides improvements for tax declaration, tax computation, and tax payment. The purpose of this study is to look into the effects of the tax service and tax complexity on e-commerce entrepreneur voluntary tax compliance behaviour. Apart from that, this study also examines the mediating effect between these two determinants due to the legitimate power (of) and trust (in) the tax authority on e-commerce entrepreneur voluntary tax compliance behaviour. Approximately 146 Malaysian e-commerce entrepreneurs responded to the survey. The findings indicate that tax service affects e-commerce entrepreneur voluntary tax compliance behaviour but not tax complexity. However, analysis using a simple mediation model in SPSS Process Macro reveals that legitimate power and trust mediate tax complexity negatively but not tax service. The findings indicate that low tax complexity combined with legitimate power and trust increase voluntary tax compliance behaviour. E-commerce entrepreneurs are satisfied with the services provided, but as future improvements, IRBM must enrich their roles as tax service providers through improved trust such as efficient staff, good servicing, and supportive behaviour.

Article Details

Section
Corporate / Business Law
Author Biography

ADIEBAH BINTI AHMAD, NORAZA BINTI MAT UDIN, RUSNIZA BINTI ABDUL RAHMAN

Adiebah Binti Ahmad1, Noraza Binti Mat Udin2 and Rusniza Binti Abdul Rahman3

1,2,3Tuanku Puteri Intan Shafinaz School of Accountancy (TISSA),

Universiti Utara Malaysia, 06010 Sintok Kedah Darul Aman, Malaysia

References

Arkkelin, D. (2014). Using SPSS to Understand Research and Data Analysis. Psychology Curricular Materials, 1,194. http://scholar.valpo.edu/psych_oerhttp://scholar.valpo.edu/psych_oer/1%0Ahttp://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.139.2050&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Abdul Manaf, N., Noraza, M. U., Zuaini, I., & Rusniza, A. R. (2013). Tax Professionals’ Perceptions toward Tax Authority : Ways to Strengthen The Malaysian Tax Administrative System. Journal of Governance and Development, 9, 1–13. http://repo.uum.edu.my/11879/1/4.pdf

Alabede, J.O (2012). An Investigation of Factors Influencing Taxpayers’ Compliance Behaviour : Evidence From Nigeria. Universiti Utara Malaysia.

Alabede, J. O., Ariffin, Z. B. Z., & Idris, K. M. (2011). Determinants of Tax Compliance Behaviour: A Proposed Model for Nigeria. International Research Journal of Finance and Economics. 78(1), 121-136.

Alm, J., & Torgler, B. (2011). Do ethics matter? tax compliance and morality. Journal of Business Ethics, 101(4), 635–651. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-0761-9

Alm, J., Kirchler, E., & Muehlbacher, S. (2012). Combining psychology and economics in the analysis of compliance: From enforcement to cooperation. Economic Analysis & Policy, 42(2), 133–151. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0313-5926(12)50016-0

Alm, J., Bruner, D. M., & McKee, M. (2016). Honesty or dishonesty of taxpayer communications in an enforcement regime. Journal of Economic Psychology, 56, 85–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2016.06.001

Alm, J., Clark, J., & Leibel, K. (2016). Enforcement, socioeconomic diversity, and tax filing compliance in the United States. Southern Economic Journal, 82(3), 725–747. https://doi.org/10.1002/soej.12106

Azriati, A., Azmi, C., Zainuddin, S., Mustapha, M. Z., & Nawi, Y. (2016). The Mediating Effect of Tax Fairness on the Relationship Between Knowledge , Complexity and Voluntary Tax. Asian Journal of Accounting Perspectives, 9, 1–12.

Adimassu, N. A., & Jerene, W. (2016). Determinants of voluntary tax compliance behavior in self assessment system : Evidence from SNNPRS, Ethiopia. International Journal of Science and Research, 5(12), 967–973. https://doi.org/10.21275/ART20163576

Alhaj, A. B. M. (2016). An investigation of factors affecting salaried and waged taxpayer compliance behavior: Evidence from Libya. Universiti Utara Malaysia. http://etd.uum.edu.my/6309/1/s816469_01.pdf

Bornman, M. (2015). The determinants and measurement of trust in tax authorities as a factor influencing tax compliance behaviour. Journal of Economic and Financial Sciences | JEF, 8(3), 772–789. https://doi.org/10.4102/jef.v8i3.121

Damajanti, A., & Abdul Karim, S. Ms. A. (2017). Effect of tax knowledge on individual taxpayers compliance. Economic & Business Solutions Journal, 1(1), 1–19.

DOSM. (2020). Usage of ICT & e-commerce by establishment.

https://newss.statistics.gov.my/newss/ep/epFreeDownloadContentSearch.seam?cid=1435518

Faizal, S. M., Palil, M. R., Maelah, R., & Ramli, R. (2019). The Mediating Effect of Power and Trust in the Relationship Between Procedural Justice and Tax Compliance. Asian Journal of Accounting and Governance, 11, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.17576/ajag-2019-11-01

Gangl, K., Hofmann, E., Hartl, B., Berkics, M. (2019). The impact of powerful authorities and trustful taxpayers : evidence for the extended slippery slope framework from Austria, Finland, and Hungary. Policy Studies, 0(0), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/01442872.2019.1577375

Gangl, K., Hofmann, E., & Kirchler, E. (2015). Tax authorities’ interaction with taxpayers: A conception of compliance in social dilemmas by power and trust. New Ideas in Psychology, 37, 13–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2014.12.001

Gangl, K., Hofmann, E., & Kirchler, E. (2012). Tax authorities ’ interaction with taxpayers : Compliance by power and trust. WU International Taxation Research Paper Series No.2012-06. https://doi.org/https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2174917

Hamid, N. A., Ibrahim, N. A., Ariffin, N., Taharin, R., & Jelani, F. A. (2018). Factors Affecting Tax Compliance among Malaysian SMEs in E-Commerce Business. International Journal of Asian Social Science, 9(1), 74–85. https://doi.org/10.18488/journal.1.2019.91.74.85

Hamid, N. A., Ismail, I. S., Yunus, N., Jali, M. N., & Rosly, A. S. (202). Taxpayer Perceptions of Tax Awareness , Tax Education , and Tax Complexity among Small and Medium Enterprises in M Malaysia : A Quadrant Analysis Approach. Universal Journal of Accounting and Finance, 10(1), 231–242.

https://doi.org/10.13189/ujaf.202.100124

IRBM. (2017). Annual Report 2016. Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia (IRBM) Retrieved

from http://lampiran1.hasil.gov.my/pdf/pdfam/annual_report_2016.pdf

Isa, K., & Pope, J. (2011). Corporate Tax Audits: Evidence from Malaysia. Global Review of Accounting and Finance,2(1), 42–56. https://espace.curtin.edu.au/bitstream/handle/20.500.11937/9513/161055_39259_Isa and Pope _2011_ GRAF.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y

Jamil, M. G. (2015). Technology Enhanced Teacher-Learning in Rural Bangladesh : a Critical Realist Inquiry With Secondary Teachers of English. In University of Southampton Research Repository ePrints Soton. https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/383975/1/MG%2520Jamil_PhD%2520Thesis.pdf

Josephine, B., & Dom, H. (2013). Enforcement Trend and Compliance Challenges : Malaysia ’ s Experience. The Fourth IMF-Japan High-Level Tax Conference For Asian Countries 2013. https://www.imf.org/external/np/seminars/eng/2013/asiatax/pdfs/malaysia2.pdf

Khamis, M. R., Kamarudin, M. F., Hashim, M. J., & Arifin, N. A. M. (2018). Length of Business Operation and Its Relationship with Compliance Behaviour of Business Zakat among Owners of SMEs. Journal of Emerging Economies and Islamic Research, 6(3), 69–82.

Khamis, I. H., & Mastor, N. H. (2021). Service Quality, Tax Awareness and Tax Fairness as Determinants of Tax Compliance among E-Commerce Enterprises in Malaysia. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 11(2), 938–951. : https://doi.org/10.6007/ijarbss/v11-i2/9190

Kirchler, E., & Wahl, I. (2010). Tax compliance inventory TAX-I: Designing an inventory for surveys of tax compliance. Journal of Economic Psychology, 31(3), 331–346. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2010.01.002

Kogler, C., Batrancea, L., Nichita, A., Pantya, J., Belianin, A., & Kirchler, E. (2013). Trust and power as determinants of tax compliance: Testing the assumptions of the slippery slope framework in Austria, Hungary, Romania and Russia. Journal of Economic Psychology, 34, 169–180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2012.09.010

Kane, L., & Ashbaugh, A. R. (2017). Simple and parallel mediation: A tutorial exploring anxiety sensitivity, sensation seeking, and gender. The Quantitative Methods for Psychology, 13(3), 148–165. https://doi.org/10.20982/tqmp.13.3.p148

Hair, J. F., Money, A. H., Samouel, P., & Page, M. (2007). Research methods for business. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons Inc

Hayes, A. F. (2012). PROCESS: A Versatile Computational Tool for Observed Variable Mediation, Mod- Eration and Conditional Process Modeling [White paper].

http://www.afhayes.com/ public/process2012.pdf

Hayes, Andrew F. 2013. Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis: A Regression-Based Approach. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Hofmann, E., Gangl, K., Kirchler, E., & Stark, J. (2014). Enhancing tax compliance through coercive and legitimate power of tax authorities by concurrently diminishing or facilitating trust in tax authorities. Law and Policy, 36(3), 290–313. https://doi.org/10.1111/lapo.12021

Kastlunger, B., E. Lozza, E. Kirchler and A. Schabmann (2013), Powerful authorities and trusting citizens: The Slippery Slope Framework and tax compliance in Italy, Journal of Economic Psychology 34, 36-45.

Kirchler, E. (2007). The Economic Psychology of Tax Behaviour. Cambridge (Vol. 42). https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511628238

Kirchler, E., Hoelzl, E., & Wahl, I. (2008). Enforced versus voluntary tax compliance: The “slippery slope” framework. Journal of Economic Psychology, 29(2), 210–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2007.05.004

Mahangila, D. N. (2017). The impact of tax compliance costs on tax compliance behaviour. Journal of Tax Administration, 3(1), 57–81.

https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004

Margaret Rouse. (2016). What is e-commerce (electronic commerce or EC)? - Definition from WhatIs.com. Techtarget.Com.

http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/e-commerce

Maseko, N. (2013). Determinants of Tax Compliance in Small and Medium Enterprises in Zimbabwe. SSRN Electronic Journal, 2(March 2013).

https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.237849

Milliron, V. C. (1985). A behavioural study of the meaning and influence of tax complexity. Journal of the Accountng Research, 23(2), 794-816.

Nan, X., Huang, E., & Zhao, J. (2018). Transaction-based Tax Evasion on Chinese E-commerce Platforms : Compliance Difficulties for Three Types of Taxes , VAT Reform , and New Winners Empirical Research on the Influences of VAT Reform on Regional Factor Input Investment : According to China ’ s. Journal of Chinese Tax and Policy, 8(1). : https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3757889

Oyewole, O. S., Gambo, E.-M., Mas’ud, A., & Nasidi, M. (2014). Tax Complexity And Tax Compliance in African Self-Assessment Environment. International Journal of Management Research & Review, 4(5), 575–583.

Palil, M. R., Amin, H., & Turmin, S. Z. (2020). Challenges in Implementing Taxes on E-Commerce Transactions in Malaysia. Jurnal Bisnis Dan Akuntansi, 2(2), 179–200. https://doi.org/10.34208/jba.v2i2.829

Richardson, G. (2006). Determinants of tax evasion : A Cross-Country Investigation. Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, 15, 150–169.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intaccaudtax.2006.08.005

Saad, N. (2011). Fairness Perceptions and Compliance Behaviour : Taxpayers’ Judgements in Self-Assessment Environments [University of Canterbury].

https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10092/5065/thesis_fulltext.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

Syakura, M. A., Nur Khairin, F., Lestari Ginting, Y., Kusumawardani, & Yunita Fitria, A. (2016). A behavioral study on voluntary compliance of e-commerce tax. 4th Asian Academic Society International Conference (AASIC), 433–442. : http://aasic.org/proc/aasic/article/view/210/207

Torgler, B. (2011), “Tax Morale and Compliance Review of Evidence and Case Studies for Europe”, Policy Research Working Paper No. 592, The World Bank, Europe and Central Asia Region, December.