The Effect of Tax Penalty, Probability of Audit and Fair Treatment on Permanent Voluntary Disclosure: Tax Professionals’ Perspective

Abstract

This paper examines the effects of tax penalty, the probability of audit and fair treatment to participate in permanent voluntary disclosure (VD), from the perspective of tax professionals. A total of 2,540 questionnaires were distributed to tax professionals in Malaysia using a combination of online and drop-off modes. The potential respondents were selected using a simple random sampling technique. The collected dataset comprised 192 useable questionnaires. To unravel the underlying factors influencing permanent VD, the research employed Smart PLS Version 4.0.9.6 for data analysis. The results revealed that tax penalty and the likelihood of probability of audit are significant in influencing corporate taxpayers’ motivation to partake in permanent VD. Surprisingly, the element of fair treatment towards taxpayers is not significant. In addition, the findings reveal that tax penalty, the probability of audit, and fairness treatment, explain 0.195 of variance (R²) in corporate taxpayers’ motivation towards partaking in permanent VD. The current findings may facilitate policymakers and the tax revenue authority in devising strategies to enhance the attractiveness of permanent VD. An enhanced permanent VD will benefit the tax revenue authority as it saves time and cost of collecting information on tax audits and investigation cases. Our findings contribute to the paucity of published work pertaining to the use of threat and fairness in galvanising participation in permanent VD.