Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
sa.72, ss.1-20, 2024 (Hakemli Dergi)
Tax is one of the most important economic events in modern economic relationships. On the one hand, tax constitutes
the financing source of public services and the public sector; on the other hand, it affects income, wealth, and
expenditures of economic actors. Tax and tax collection activities are determined by political decision-making processes
and are closely related to the sociocultural structure of a society. As fiscal events, taxes are affected by political
and economic developments and social and cultural developments. In this regard, taxation is a fiscal sociological
phenomenon. A fiscal event has social, cultural, and religious aspects, and without considering these aspects, it is not
possible to understand and explain social reality.
Tax perceptions of individuals and societies, how they evaluate taxes, and their reactions to taxes can be explained by
tax psychology. Analysing why individuals and taxpayers react to taxes is extremely important for achieving the goals
and objectives expected from taxation and ensuring voluntary tax compliance. Tax awareness is the level of willingness
to fulfil tax-related obligations of citizens who know the importance of tax in terms of the realization of public
services. Social awareness of the necessity of taxation is crucial for establishing tax consciousness. Political powers
should convince society that taxes they collect will be returned to society in an efficient and effective manner. How
an individual perceives taxes and the tax awareness that follows are affected by many psychological and sociological
factors. While tax audits and penalties increase tax awareness to a certain level, increasing tax awareness in society
depends mostly on sociological and psychological factors.
Individual factors affecting attitudes and behaviours towards tax are factors arising from the individual. These factors
are subjective and vary from individual to individual. In this study, the factors that determine tax awareness and tax
perception are demographic characteristics of the individual (gender, age, education, income level, etc.), tax morality,
subjective tax burden, ability to pay taxes, political power, loyalty and trust in the state, perceived level of public
expenditures, and taxpayers’ views on other taxpayers.
The aim of this study is to investigate the factors affecting the tax awareness and perception of Akdeniz University
students. There are many factors that affect individuals’ tax awareness and tax perception. In this framework, the subject
of this study is whether there is a significant difference between the demographic characteristics, gender, faculties and
departments, and education levels of Akdeniz University students in terms of tax awareness and tax perception.
developing future tax policies considering the results of this research will help to reach tax capacity by increasing tax
compliance, which will lead to an increase in tax revenues. This study is the second to investigate tax perception and
tax awareness at the Akdeniz University scale and therefore contributes to the development of the existing literature.
This study aims to determine how Akdeniz University students perceive taxes, their attitudes towards the Turkish Tax
System, the impact of taxes on students’ voting preferences, their attitudes towards tax amnesty practises and evasion
activities, and their level of tax awareness.
Many studies have investigated higher education students’ tax perceptions and awareness in Turkey. These studies
can be summarized at a few points in terms of sample scope. First, a significant number of studies have measured
the tax perception and tax awareness of FEAS students (Ömürbek, et al., 2007; Sağlam, 2013; Serinkan and Erdoğan,
2017; Ayrangöl et al., 2017; Barlas and Güney, 2017; Başdağ, 2017; Karlılar and Kıral 2018; Tabakan and Orçun,
2018; Gürçam and Moç, 2019; Yanık and Doğan, 2022). The studies in the second part consisted of studies conducted
at a single university as a whole or at different universities (Aydemir, 2013; Akkara and Gencel, 2016; Teyyare and
Kumbaşlı, 2016; Çiçek and Bitlisli, 2017; Bulu, 2018; Karacan, 2019; Özdemir, 2021). The few studies in the last
section cover two different departments such as finance-theology (Yeşilyurt, 2015; Kıral, 2018) and different faculties
such as law-theology (Koban and Bulu, 2017).
The research population is students studying at Akdeniz University in the 2021-2022 academic year. As of 2021,
66.209 students are studying at Akdeniz University. This figure was rounded up and taken as 66. 000. Because of the
preliminary sampling, it was concluded that approximately 300 samples should be collected from the population. In
this study, the sample size was decided to be 300 or more. A total of 656 surveys were administered to the students; 37
were not included in the analysis because some of the surveys were too damaged to be included in the analysis. The
surveys were analysed with SPSS 27 package programme. In this study, a questionnaire was created using demographic
information and statements obtained from studies on the subject in the literature. The questionnaire consisted of two
parts. The first part includes the demographic information of the students consisting of 21 questions, and the second
part includes 38 statements prepared according to a 5-point Likert scale to determine the attitudes and behaviours of
the students towards tax.
The SPSS package programme used for statistical analysis in the field of social sciences was used to analyse the
dataset. After the data were entered, they were checked. Incorrect data were corrected, and the data were made ready
for analysis. Frequency analysis was used to determine the numerical distribution of the data (in terms of numbers).Descriptive statistics were used to determine variance, standard deviation, and percentage values related to the data
obtained.
In this study, the Independent Sample t-test or its nonparametric equivalent Mann-Whitney U test was used to
determine whether there was a significant difference between two independent groups, and One-Way Analysis of
Variance (OneWay Anova) or its nonparametric equivalent Kruskal–Wallis tests were used to determine whether there
was a significant difference between more than two independent groups. Tukey and Schfee tests from post-hoc tests
were used to determine the differences between the groups. The results obtained were interpreted at the 95% confidence
interval and P<0.05 significance level. Normality and reliability analyses of the dataset were performed.
Factors affecting the tax perception and awareness of Akdeniz University students include the view of political power,
the structure of taxes, the views of taxpayers on other taxpayers, the perception of public expenditures, tax justice,
tax amnesties, and the level of deterrence of audits and penalties. Most Akdeniz University students perceive taxation
as a civic duty and can establish a financial link between taxes and public services. It has been determined that most
students do not know which taxes they pay, at what rates, and how much of their monthly income they pay in taxes. A
significant proportion of students believe that public services will be disrupted if taxes are not paid.
The findings of this study show that Akdeniz University students have negative attitudes towards the Turkish Tax
System. It has been determined that students do not have enough information about the Turkish Tax System, they think
tax audits are not effective and sufficient, and they think that taxation is not fair. No significant difference was found
between the 1st and 4th grades in the subdimensions of tax perception, tax awareness, the Turkish Tax System and
tax-voter behaviour. However, statistically significant differences were found between 1st and 4th graders in attitudes
towards tax amnesty-evasion, and 4th graders had a higher score. Similarly, the subdimensions of tax perception and
tax-voter behaviour did not differ between associate and undergraduate students. In order to test whether there is a
significant difference between the attitudes of students who take tax courses and those who do not take tax courses,
the students of the department of finance and the faculty of theology were compared. According to the findings, it was
determined that the tax perception scores of theology and finance department students were above average, and there
was no difference between the two departments.
It was observed that there was no significant difference between theology and finance students in the sub-dimension
of tax-voter behaviour, while there were differences between departments in the sub-dimensions of tax awareness, the
Turkish Tax System, and tax amnesty and evasion. Students establish a link between taxes and democracy at an average
level and think that the taxes paid are not used correctly and that they do not receive their money’s worth. It has been
determined that students want to learn the fiscal policies of the political party they support, that their voting preferences
will not change even if the party they do not support reduces taxes, that the tax burden and tax rates are partially
effective on students’ voting preferences, and that political views are more effective on voting preferences.
Raising students’ awareness of taxation is also important for raising future generations. In this context, an elective
course called "Budget Literacy" can be offered to university students regardless of their faculties and departments. At
this point, the necessity and importance of taxation and the awareness that each citizen is responsible for the continuity
of income needed by the public can be contributed.