Koku Eli Soglo

Determinants of Business Tax Compliance: A Case Study of Togo

Co-author : Y.M.Isaac Amedanou

Discussants : Aristide Affroumou et Jean-François Brun

Abstract

What are the factors determine the willingness of businesses to pay taxes? We address this question using data from a survey on tax consent from the Oce of Togolese Revenue (OTR) in
2019 covering 413 formal rms. To do so, we construct two tax compliance measures. The potential determinants of tax compliance include tax fraud appreciation, tax laws amendment, tax knowledge, tax bene ciaries, bribes, severity of penalties, legitimacy of customs duties, tax amount appreciation, tax burden, legitimacy of VAT and geographical location of the rms. The results show that all these factors are key determinants of voluntary tax compliance except for the tax laws amendment, tax amount appreciation and the tax burden. When we isolate the Maritime region, the result remains unchanged except that the appreciation of tax fraud has no signi cant impact on voluntary compliance in that region. Finally, the determinants vary once we di erentiate businesses by size, either nationally or regionally.

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