The impact of demographic factors on tax compliance

Öz

One of the most important duties of countries is to provide goods and services to their citizens. Moreover, they need income to realize and maintain these goods and services. Governments provide this requirement from various sources and among these sources, taxes is the largest one and the history of taxes dates back to the first countries founded in history. Due to being the main source of financing, governments strive to maximize their tax revenues; and try to minimize tax losses and evasions. In other words, it expects its citizens to fully comply with the tax, declare all their income, and pay all their taxes. On the other hand, due to creating a burden on them, taxpayers try to avoid taxes as much as possible. In other words, they want to pay the least tax. In the relevant framework, the factors behind the motivation of individuals to comply with taxes are becoming important. In this study, after defining tax compliance and its phases in the first section, demographic factors that have an impact on tax compliance are discussed. The relevant demographic factors are the demographic factors that have been agreed upon in the studies conducted in the literature to date. The conclusion reached is that these factors may have the same effects in different countries-regions as well as different effects, and analysis should be made by focusing on the country-region for a clearer result.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Taxation
• tax compliance
• demographic factors

Demografik faktörlerin vergi uyumu üzerindeki etkisi

Öz

Vatandaşlarına mal ve hizmet tahsis etmek en önemli görevlerinden bir tanesi olan devletler bu tahsisi gerçekleştirebilmek ve devam ettirebilmek adına gelire gereksinim duymaktadır. Bu gereksinimini çeşitli kaynaklardan sağlayan devletlerin en büyük paya sahip olan gelir kaynağı vergilerdir ve vergilerin geçmişi, tarihte kurulmuş olan ilk devletlere kadar uzanmaktadır. En temel finansman kaynağı olması nedeniyle, devletler, vergi gelirlerini en yüksek noktaya ulaştırmak için çaba sarf ederken; vergi kayıp ve kaçaklarını ise en aza indirmeye çalışmaktadır. Diğer bir ifadeyle, devletler, vatandaşlarından vergiye tam uyum göstermeleri, tüm gelirlerini beyan etmeleri ve tüm vergilerini ödemeleri beklentisi içerisindedir. Öte yandan, üzerlerinde bir yük olması nedeniyle, mükellefler, vergilerden mümkün olduğu kadar kaçmaya ve kaçınmaya çalışmaktadırlar. Bir başka deyişle, ödeyebilecekleri en az vergiyi ödemeyi tercih etmektedirler. İlgili çerçevede, bireylerin vergiye uyum sağlayıp sağlamamaları yönündeki motivasyonlarının arkasındaki faktörler önem kazanmaktadır. Bu çalışmada, ilk bölümde vergi uyumu ve aşamaları tanımlandıktan sonra, vergi uyumu üzerinde etkisi bulunan demografik faktörler ele alınmıştır. İlgili demografik faktörler, literatürde gerçekleştirilen irdelemelerde üzerinde uzlaşılan demografik faktörlerdir. Ulaşılan vargı, söz konusu faktörlerin farklı ülkeler-bölgeler kapsamında aynı etkiler yaratabileceği gibi farklı etkiler de yaratabileceği, daha net bir sonuç için araştırılan ülkeye-bölgeye odaklanılarak bir analiz yapılması gerektiğidir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Vergileme
• vergi uyumu
• demografik faktörler

Kaynakça

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