Taxpayer's Attitude Towards Tax Evasion in a Developing Country: Do the Demographic Characteristics Matter?

As tax evasion is an acute problem in developing countries, the study aims to examine the factors that influence the taxpayers' attitudes towards tax evasion encompassing the moderating effect of demographic characteristics on tax evasion. The study uses structural equation modeling (SEM) as the tool to analyze the primary data collected from different sections of respondents. The study shows that fairness perception, tax knowledge, audit, and enforcement initiatives negatively influence taxpayers' attitudes towards tax evasion, while corruption, discrimination, and complexity in the tax system influence them positively. Further, the study found that males, younger, married, graduate, self-employed, and people with low-income become more influenced by the factors of tax evasion than female, older, unmarried, under-graduated, job holders, and people with high income. The findings of this study provide the governments of the developing countries and their tax authorities a valuable understanding, which in turn helps them reform the taxpayers' compliance framework.