The Role of Opportunity, Taxpayers’ Perceptions and Demographic Differences in Tax Compliance Analysis

Tax compliance has been analysed from various perspectives across time and its importance in economy should not be underestimated. One research direction is represented by the income tax compliance of individual taxpayers. The present study aims to examine the relationship between specific factors, such as the opportunity of noncompliance (income level, occupation, the source of the income), taxpayers’ perceptions (perceived chance of being audited, perceived chance of being detected and the perceptions about the actual level of the income tax), demographic characteristics (sex, age), and the compliance intention. The research focuses only on the income reporting behaviour of three categories of individual taxpayers: doctors, lawyers/notaries and accountants, from Iasi County, Romania. A survey with self-administered questionnaires has been conducted in order to obtain the information needed from the target population. The results are consistent with the previous findings in the field: the taxpayers that have obtained untraceable income in the past are less compliant, the lawyers/notaries group present a lower degree of general compliance intention than the doctors or accountants group, the compliance intention grows as the perceived chance of being audited and the perceived chance of being detected grow, taxpayers that perceive the actual income tax level as being “too high” or “high” are less compliant and last but not least, men are less compliant than women and taxpayers in their 50’s and older are more compliant than the young segment. The results may be useful to both theorists and practitioners.