A Study of Individual Taxpayer’s Perception of Tax Practitioners in Malaysia

The paper examines Malaysian taxpayers’ perceptions of their current tax practitioner as well as the attributes of the ideal tax practitioners that they are looking for. The study shows that gender, age and education level are significantly correlated with the attributes of their ideal tax practitioners. Majority of females, in the age group over 31 years and with higher education level, tend to have high priority for ‘low risk with no fuss’ as compared to males, with lower education level and age group below 31 years who display priority for ‘creative accounting, aggressive tax planning’. Besides, the most welcome kind of tax practitioner is one with ‘low risk with no fuss’ and whom taxpayers categorize as an honest person. This is followed by ‘creative accounting, aggressive tax planning’, where taxpayers seek for a tax practitioner who is familiar with the grey area, clever in tax minimizing and aware of the major areas that Inland Revenue Board (IRB) check on. The last is the ‘cautions minimization of tax’, which is the least popular. Here, the taxpayers want the tax practitioner to help them minimize the tax, but at the same time also warn them against getting involved in tax planning schemes. The findings also indicate that most of the taxpayers are able to engage tax practitioners who have the attributes that they rate as the most important ones.