The Effects of Emotion, Trust and Perception on Tax Compliance: Empirical Evidence from Vietnam

Abstract

Most governments around the world rely heavily on tax revenue to fund not only their recurrent expenditure but also their long-term development goals. There is some evidence suggesting that tax evasion in Vietnam has, over the years, been on the rise in terms of number, scale and degree of sophistication. It may thus be beneficial to understand the extent to which various relevant psychological factors interact to influence the tax compliance of Vietnamese taxpayers. This chapter attempts to quantify the effects of taxpayer's emotion, trust and perception on their tax compliance in Vietnam. It adopts a positivist research framework, a quantitative research method and primary data collection. First, a simple, theoretical model in which emotion and trust affect tax compliance both directly and indirectly through perception as a mediating variable, is constructed. The Baron−Kenny method is then applied to the data collected from an e-survey to test various hypotheses derived from the devised theoretical model. The results show that taxpayer's perception positively and significantly influences tax compliance whereas emotion and trust exert significant and positive effects on tax compliance both directly and indirectly (via perception). The findings suggest that voluntary tax compliance in Vietnam can be improved through better tax administration services, more fiscal policy accountability and pro-active tax socialization.