Tax evasion and non-compliance attitude of income taxpayers in Sri-Lanka

Abstract

This study explores the Analysis of tax evasion and income tax noncompliance attitude of income taxpayers in Sri-Lanka. The main objective of the study is to explore and analyze the factors influencing on the tax evasion and the noncompliance attitude of taxpayers in Sri-Lanka. This area of research did not appear to have been previously studies in Sri-Lanka context and in this respect the research represent an original contribution while research have been conducted in Sri-Lanka. Tax evasion is said to occur when eligible taxpayers deliberately fail to comply with their tax obligations, which may cause serious damage to total tax revenue loss and create problems of the proper functioning of the public sector and threatening its capacity to finance the public expenses. Tax compliance means true reporting of all tax bases, correct computation of the tax liability and timely filling and paying correct amount of tax on due. Data collection tool applied in this study was a set of questionnaire used by Marti et.al cited Nugi Nkwe. The structured questionnaires were distributed directly to the individuals and collected within two weeks. This questionnaire comprised five points Likert scale to evaluate demographic profile and attitudinal factors. A sample from various categories of employments and eligible to pay income tax were taken as sample respondents for the study. The result of the study tries to generalize how the tax evasion and attitude of taxpayers influences in the tax system in Sri-Lanka. The Chi-Square test of independence was used to test hypothesis that attributes were independent of each other and mean and standard deviation were also used to draw conclusion that the job categories and income source of respondents were independents in tax evasion and noncompliance attitude income taxpayers.