Understanding Behavioral Intention to Use Digital Tax Platforms: Evidence from Regional Public Service Users

This research seeks to explore the factors influencing the behavior of digital tax platform adoption among regional public service users in Indonesia, particularly in South Sulawesi Province. Based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), the study includes four core constructs (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitate conditions and trust in government) to investigate their direct and mediated impacts on actual system use via behavioral intention. A valid response of 200 was obtained from the individual taxpayers who had experience with digital tax services. The findings are tested through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) and indicate that all the proposed paths are statistically significant. Effort expectancy and trust in government were the strongest predictors of behavioral intention, which in turn had a large direct impact on use. In addition, mediation analysis provides evidence that behavioral intention mediates the relationship between all of the antecedents and system usage. The findings highlight the crucial roles of intuitional trust, system useability, and infrastructure support in facilitating technology acceptance in the public sector. The research adds to the expansion of the UTAUT model by introducing trust as a fundamental construct and provides policy implications for improving citizen uptake of digital tax services in developing areas.