POTENTIAL TAXPAYERS' ETHICAL PERCEPTION OF TAX EVASION: A PRELIMINARY SURVEY

Abstract

Tax literatures have recognized that taxpayers’ perceptions and ethics, as well as the tax education do exert significant influence on tax evasion decision. Nevertheless, few have studied on the students’ ethical perception towards tax evasion regardless of the fact that these group of people will grow up being the potential taxpayers. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to replicate the work of previous researchers on the realm of ethics and tax evasion, in order to investigate the perception of accounting and non-accounting students towards the ethics of tax evasion. A survey instruments consisting of 16 statements was distributed to 150 students at Universiti Teknologi MARA Cawangan Kelantan (UiTMCK), Malaysia. Scores between the two groups of respondents were compared to determine whether there is significant difference in perception towards tax evasion between accounting and non-accounting students. The results obtained indicated that there are no significant differences between field of study, gender and education level for ethical perception on tax evasion suggesting more future research needed on determinants of potential taxpayers’ perception towards tax evasion.