Digital tax adoption, Sharia compliance, and Muslim taxpayer compliance: The mediating role of intention to comply

Abstract

Taxpayer compliance is essential for sustaining public revenue and supporting national development, while the digitalisation of tax administration has transformed how taxpayers access information, report liabilities, and make payments. Digitalisation, however, does not by itself explain why taxpayers develop a willingness to comply. This conceptual paper develops an integrated framework that combines the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Sharia Enterprise Theory (SET) to explain Muslim taxpayer compliance in a digital tax environment. The paper argues that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use capture the technological dimension of digital tax services, whereas sharia compliance captures a value-based dimension concerning the perceived compatibility of tax-related responsibilities and administration with Islamic principles such as justice, trust, accountability, honesty, and public benefit. Intention to comply is positioned as the behavioural mechanism linking these antecedents to taxpayer compliance. The paper makes three conceptual contributions. First, it extends the application of TAM from technology-use intention toward tax-compliance intention by explicitly establishing the contextual bridge between digital service perceptions and fulfilment of tax obligations. Second, it introduces SET as a complementary value-based perspective rather than treating Muslim taxpayer behaviour as a purely technological decision. Third, it distinguishes intention to comply from actual compliance behaviour, thereby allowing future research to examine whether favourable technological and value-based perceptions are translated into behavioural outcomes. The framework is proposed for future empirical examination among Muslim individual taxpayers in Semarang City, Indonesia. The paper concludes by identifying implications for theory and future digital tax research without making empirical claims.