Introducing Tax Education in Non-Accounting Curriculum in Higher Education: Survey Evidence

Anis Barieyah Mat Bahari; Lai Ming Ling

Article — Published Version

Introducing Tax Education in Non-Accounting

Curriculum in Higher Education: Survey Evidence

Journal of Financial Reporting and Accounting

Suggested Citation: Anis Barieyah Mat Bahari; Lai Ming Ling (2009) : Introducing Tax Education in

Non-Accounting Curriculum in Higher Education: Survey Evidence, Journal of Financial Reporting

and Accounting, ISSN 1985-2517, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Bingley, Vol. 7, Iss. 1, pp.

37-51,

https://doi.org/10.1108/19852510980000640

This Version is available at:

https://hdl.handle.net/10419/56049

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Introducing Tax Education in

Non-Accounting Curriculum in

Higher Education: Survey Evidence

Anis Barieyah Mat Bahari

Accounting Research Institute & Faculty of Accountancy

Universiti Teknologi MARA, Pahang Campus, Malaysia

Email: [email protected]

Lai Ming Ling

Accounting Research Institute & Faculty of Accountancy

Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia

Email: [email protected] or [email protected]

This study aims i) to assess the quest for tax education among working adults

that pursuing off-campus non-accounting program, ii) to analyze the level of

tax knowledge among the working adults, iii) to elicit the relevant tax topics

to be taught should tax education be integrated into non-accounting

curriculum in higher education. We surveyed 450 working adults pursuing

off-campus non-accounting program in one Malaysian public university. 190

usable responses were received. The survey found 64% of the respondents

were keen to learn taxation, and only 23.7% of the respondents possessed

high level of tax knowledge. The topics that they desired to learn the most are

basic tax principles, personal taxation, tax planning for individuals and

taxation for small business and company. The findings suggest that as we

moved into the era of self-assessment tax system, it is imperative for the

accounting academics and the education authorities to seriously consider

introducing tax education in non-accounting curriculum in higher

education.

Keywords: Higher education, Malaysia, Non-accounting curriculum, Taxation,

Tax education.

Journal of Financial Reporting & Accounting Vol. 7 No. 1, 37-51, 2009

ISSN 1985-2517

of Accountancy & UPENA, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.

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Journal of Financial Reporting & Accounting

Introduction

Globally, several tax authorities (for example, United States, Canada, Japan,

Pakistan, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom) had

progressively implemented self-assessment system (SAS). In Malaysia, the

Malaysian tax authorities had launched SAS on corporate and individual

taxpayers in year of assessment (YA) 2001 and 2004 respectively. Under the SAS,

the onus to assess tax liability rests on the taxpayers. Hence, to be tax-compliant,

individual taxpayers need to possess some basic tax knowledge on personal taxation,

in relation to the taxability of income, deductibility of expenses, entitlements, reliefs,

rebates and exemptions, in order to compute tax liability correctly.

In the international arena, since the implementation of SAS, the United

States Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that in the United

States (US), in the tax year 2001, gross tax gap estimates as a result of tax non-

compliance of individual income tax was about US$244 billion (Brostek, 2007).

The same phenomenon of loss of tax revenue as a result of tax non-compliance

is also observed in some developing countries like Malaysia. Krishnamoorthy

(2006a) reported that Malaysian tax defaulters increased by almost 10 times

within two years time, from 25,160 in 2003 to 239,666 in 2005. The tax offences

included failure to submit returns, declaring false returns and not providing

sufficient information; notably, around one-third of Malaysians did not pay

their taxes. For example, in year 2005, 1.3 million potential taxpayers did not file

their tax returns, and it was estimated that the Malaysian government has lost

approximately Ringgit Malaysia (RM) 307.7 million due to tax non-compliance

(Krishnamoorthy, 2006b) since the implementation of self-assessment regime

Albert Einstein (1879-1956) once asserted that “the hardest thing in the

world to understand is the income tax”. In line with this, tax educators had

argued that it is important to teach young people (future taxpayers) about tax

before they have to pay income tax, so that they will respect the tax system and

understand the requirement of having to pay tax when they start working

(Barjoyai, 1992; Kasipillai et al., 2003; Furnham, 2005). However, in many higher

learning institutions in the world, as well as in Malaysia; only accounting and

some business management students are exposed to taxation at tertiary levels

(Kasipillai et al., 2003). For example, in one of the largest Malaysian public

universities namely, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), tax subjects are only

taught to undergraduates of Faculty of Accountancy and Faculty of

Administrative Science and Policy Studies. As a result, non-accounting

undergraduates have little or no exposure to taxation as tax subjects are not

formally incorporated into non-accounting curriculum.

Pragmatically, non-accounting students need to be exposed to tax

education, as they are future taxpayers. However, at the time of study, little is

known about non-accounting undergraduates’ understanding of taxation.

Unfortunately, except for the studies of Craner and Lymer (1999), Miller and

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Introducing Tax Education in Non-Accounting Curriculum

Woods (2000), Schwartz and Stout (2000), Hite and Hasseldine (2001), Juchau

and Neale (2001), Furnham (2005) as well as Tan and Veal (2005), there is a

dearth of literature on ‘tax education’ even in the developed countries. To the

best of our knowledge, with the exception of Kasipillai et al. (2003) who had

attempted to examine Malaysian undergraduates and their understanding of

taxation, no study has been conducted to examine the quest for tax education

from the perspectives of non-accounting undergraduates, and the suitable tax

topics to be covered should tax education be formally integrated into non-

accounting curriculum. Therefore, this study has emerged to fill up such

knowledge gap of understanding taxation.

Research Objectives

This study aims (i) to assess the quest for tax education among Malaysian

working adults pursuing off-campus non-accounting undergraduate programs,

ii) to assess the level of tax knowledge among the non-accounting

undergraduates, iii) to identify the relevant tax topics to be covered if tax

education is being integrated into non-accounting curriculum.

Literature Review

About forty three years ago, an eminent accounting professor in the US, Dr.

Sommerfeld raised his concern that taxation has become an education’s orphan

(see Sommerfeld, 1966). He argued that taxation should be taught rather than just

practiced and learned; he further suggested that universities can offer unique

perspective on tax subject to students. In Malaysia, both Barjoyai (1992) and Ho

(1992) had called for incorporation of tax education into the academic curriculum

regardless of the students’ academic disciplines. Barjoyai (1992) argued that

knowledge of taxation is probably more important than knowledge of geography

or geometry; as taxation is a universal knowledge needed by each citizen with

potential liability of paying tax one day. He asserted that all future taxpayers need

to be equipped with sufficient tax knowledge at schools or tertiary levels in order

to make them more tax literate. Unfortunately, after 16 years, the calling remains

unheeded; tax education has not been formally introduced at tertiary education

in all disciplines in Malaysia as well as in other parts of the world.

Knowing the importance of tax education, the Japanese government has

used tax education as one of the measures to enhance tax compliance. Notably,

the Japanese government has introduced tax education to students at school

because they are the future taxpayers (Sarker, 2003). Prior studies found tax

education might have influenced peoples’ attitudes towards taxation and tax

compliance behaviors (for example, Barjoyai, 1992; Eriksen and Fallan 1996;

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Kasipillai et al., 2003). Pragmatically, tax education enables people to understand

the tax system better. Eriksen and Fallan (1996) found that with reasonable

understanding of the tax laws, people are more willing to respect the tax system,

thus they are more compliant to pay tax instead of evading it. Through tax

education, individuals become learned, could understand tax laws and are able

to exploit the tax laws, in planning their tax affairs. They found that tax knowledge

improve individual’s tax ethics behavior. Kasipillai et al. (2003) conducted a

study on Malaysian undergraduates; they found that tax education influenced

the attitudes and mind sets of Malaysian students (the future taxpayers) towards

tax avoidance and tax evasions. Kasipillai et al. (2003) suggested that it is

important for all students (future taxpayers) to have sufficient tax knowledge in

order to reduce their tendencies of tax non-compliance.

Amrizah and Nero (2005) surveyed the tax knowledge of working adults, in

particular the salaried individuals in East Malaysia; they found that the survey

respondents had average knowledge of personal taxation. Meanwhile, Loo and

Ho (2005) examined white collar salaried individuals’ tax knowledge in Malacca

(a state located at the centre region of Malaysia). They found that the surveyed

respondents did not possess sufficient tax knowledge pertaining to personal

taxation even though they had tertiary education. Loo and Ho (2005) found that

the majority of salaried individuals surveyed were unable to identify the correct

year for which a given income should be chargeable for tax. On top of this, they

were not fully aware of personal tax reliefs, rebates, entitlements and exemptions.

One of the implications of Loo and Ho (2005) is that majority of Malaysian

salaried individuals might have filed incorrect tax returns in the era of self-

assessment regime.

Furnham (2005) examined children (ages ranging from 10 to 15 years)’s

knowledge of the principles of taxation; he found that at the age of 10-15 years,

adolescents still do not fully comprehend the nature and purpose of taxation.

Furnham (2005) then argued that at tertiary level, students should have a broader

educational view on tax, hence, they could comprehend tax subject better.

Norazah (2006) had attempted to examine tax knowledge of academics from

non-accounting faculties in one of the public universities in Malaysia. The

findings showed that only 13% of the academics surveyed possessed high

level of basic personal tax knowledge. Norazah (2006) found Malaysian

academics from the non-accounting faculties were in favor of having tax subject

being introduced into non-accounting curriculum. The academics surveyed

believed that non-accounting undergraduates (the future taxpayers) should be

exposed to tax education at tertiary levels, because tax knowledge is too

advanced and specialized to be included in primary and secondary curriculum.

In line with study of Furnham (2005), Malaysian academics had the opinion that

at tertiary levels, students would have broader educational views on taxation

as they are more mature.

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Introducing Tax Education in Non-Accounting Curriculum

Research Methodology

The subjects of the study were non-accounting undergraduates pursuing non-

accounting programs in public universities in Malaysia. In view of the fact that

most of the students who pursue off-campus programs are working adults

returning to universities, and the majority of them are taxpayers or have some

taxpaying experience, they could provide useful data to meet the research

objectives. At the time of study, notably, UiTM has the largest number of off-

campus students in Malaysia. Hence, this study surveyed off-campus students

from non-accounting faculties in UiTM. At the time of study, UiTM has 22 faculties.

The survey targeted the off-campus students pursuing degree courses in the

four largest faculties, namely, Faculty of Architecture, Planning and Survey, Faculty

of Law, Faculty of Business Management and Faculty of Civil Engineering.

A questionnaire was designed to collect data. The questionnaire is divided

into four sections. Section A gathers background information of the respondents.

Section B solicits respondents’ experience as a taxpayer and the quest of learning

taxation in the course of study. In Section C, ten questions are designed to

assess respondents’ understanding of self-assessment tax system and their

knowledge pertaining to personal taxation, such as relief and rebates. Section D

solicits respondents’ opinion on the introduction of tax education in non-

accounting curriculum and the relevant tax topics that should be taught if tax

subject is introduced.

Written approval was sought from the dean of the four faculties before

administering the questionnaires personally. The data collection was carried

out over a period of three weeks, from 30

August 2006 to 20

September 2006.

In total, questionnaires were personally administered to 450 students, out of

which 216 responses were obtained. Of these, 26 questionnaires were partially

completed and were discarded, and only 190 questionnaires were usable. Thus,

the effective response rate was 42.22% (190/450).

Data Analysis

Table 1 presents the respondents’ profiles. About 40% of the respondents were

from Faculty of Business and Management, 21.6% from Faculty of Law, 20%

from Faculty of Civil Engineering, and 18.4% from Faculty of Architecture,

Planning and Survey. Nearly 60% of the respondents were females and 40%

were males. The majority of the off campus undergraduates were Malays and

the rest were indigenous groups such as Kadazan (1.6%), Iban (1.1%), Bajau

(1.1%), Bidayuh (0.5%), Melanau (0.5%) and Dusun (0.5%). Most of the

respondents were aged between 26 to 35 years. The majority of respondents

(64.7%) were single and 34.2% married. In respect of academic background,

64.7% of the respondents had a diploma and 20% had a bachelor degree. 53.2%

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of the respondents were employed in the private sectors, 34.2% worked as

government servants, 5% were self employed or engaged in partnership, and

the remainder worked in government linked companies or semi government

sectors. About 75% earned an annual income of less than RM30,000 and 19.4%

earned between RM30,001 and RM60,000, merely 2.6% earned more than

RM150,000 annually.

The findings as presented in Table 1 shows that 64.2% (122/190) of the

respondents are non-taxpayers and the remaining 35.8% (68/190) are taxpayers.

Note that under the current Malaysian tax law, individuals who earned not more

than RM2,500 per month are not required to file tax returns. Hence, they are

non-taxpayers. A cross-tabulation analysis affirms that all non-taxpayers (122

of them) were earning a gross annual income of less than RM30,000.

Table 1: The Respondents’ Profiles

Particular Frequency Percentage

(%)

Faculty: Faculty of Business Management 76 40.0

Faculty of Law 41 21.6

Faculty of Civil Engineering 38 20.0

Faculty of Architecture, Planning and 35 18.4

Survey

Gender: Male 77 40.5

Female 113 59.5

Ethnic Group: Malay 180 94.7

Iban 2 1.1

Bidayuh 1 0.5

Melanau 1 0.5

Kadazan 3 1.6

Bajau 2 1.1

Dusun 1 0.5

Age:

≤ 25 years 79 41.5

26 – 35 years 82 43.2

> 35 years 29 15.3

Marital Status: Single 123 64.7

Married 65 34.2

Other 2 1.1

Academic Background: SPM (O level equivalent) 9 4.7

STPM (A level equivalent) 15 7.9

Diploma 123 64.7

Bachelor Degree 38 20.0

Others 5 2.7

continued

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Introducing Tax Education in Non-Accounting Curriculum

About 77.9% of the surveyed respondents (who are taxpayers) indicated

that they completed tax return forms themselves, whilst the remainders (22.1%)

sought the help from others. Of those who sought help from others in filing out

tax return form, a further analysis found that 40.0% sought help from friends,

27% from relatives, 20% from tax agents and 13% from spouse (see Figure 1).

Occupation Background: Government Servant 65 34.2

Employed in Private Sector 101 53.2

Sole proprietor/self employed 11 5.8

Partnership 5 2.6

Working in Government Link 3 1.5

Companies

Working in Semi Government 2 1.1

Companies

Others 3 1.6

Gross Annual Income: < RM 30,000 143 75.3

RM 30,001 –RM 60,000 37 19.4

RM 60,001 – RM 90,000 2 1.1

RM 90,001 – RM120,000 2 1.1

RM 120,001 – RM 150,000 1 0.5

> RM 150,000 5 2.6

Taxpayers 68 35.8

Non-taxpayers 122 64.2

Total 190 100

Table 1 – continued

Relatives,

Spouse,

13%

Tax agents,

20%

Figure 1: Who Help You to Fill Out Tax Return Form?

Tax agents,

20%

Spouse,

13%

Relatives,

27%

Friends,

40%

Ten questions were designed to gauge the respondents’ tax knowledge

pertaining to personal relief, rebates, exemptions and entitlements. The results

are presented in Table 2. The findings show that almost half of the respondents

(47.9%) were not aware that effective from Year of Assessment (YA) 2005, an

individual resident taxpayer is entitled to claim a relief of RM6,000 for employee’s

contribution to employee provident fund and life insurance premium. Merely

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35% were aware that starting from YA 2005, the relief for purchase of books,

journals and magazines was RM700. Slightly more than 40% of the respondents

Table 2: Percentage of Respondents on Tax Knowledge

Yes No Not Sure

Statement Frequency Frequency Frequency

(percentage) (percentage) (percentage)

a. Do you know starting from Year 44 91 55

Assessment 2005, relief for employee’s (23.2) (47.9) (28.9)

contribution to EPF or approved fund

is RM6,000?

b. Do you know that starting from Year 72 77 41

Assessment 2005 relief for purchase of (37.9) (40.5) (21.6)

books, journals and magazines is

RM700?

c. Do you know that relief for parents’ 77 75 38

medical expense is RM5,000? (40.5) (39.5) (20.0)

d. Do you know that for the taxpayer, 86 46 58

his spouse and children, the tax relief (45.3) (24.2) (30.5)

on complete medical examination

expenses is RM500?

e. Do you know with effect from Year 42 98 50

Assessment 2006, if the husband has (22.1) (51.6) (26.3)

no source of income, the wife will be

entitled husband relief of RM3,000?

f. Do you know that starting from YA 47 86 57

2006, child relief of RM4,000 per child (24.7) (45.3) (30.0)

will be given to taxpayers if their

children study overseas?

g. Do you know with effect from Year 42 91 57

Assessment 2006, disabled child who (22.1) (47.9) (30.0)

pursues his study at the higher

institution will be given child relief

amounted to RM9,000?

h. Do you know starting Year Assessment 40 94 56

2001, rebate of RM350 is being (21.1) (49.5) (29.5)

given to taxpayer if chargeable income

not exceeding RM35,000?

i. Do you know starting Year Assessment 59 83 48

2006, a rebate of RM500 for computer (31.1) (43.7) (25.3)

can be claimed once in every five years?

j. Do you know that surplus of zakat/ 62 65 63

fitrah

is not refundable? (32.6) (34.2) (33.2)

* Zakat/fitrah is an Islamic tax

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Introducing Tax Education in Non-Accounting Curriculum

indicated that they were not aware of the changes of the relief and 21.6% were

not sure.

In turn, Pearson’s Chi-Square test was performed to test if there is any

difference in awareness of the changes in tax relief for those who prepared tax

return themselves and those who sought the help from tax agent. The chi-

square result indicates that those who prepared the tax return form themselves

were more aware of the changes than those who sought the help of tax agents,

at 5% significant level (χ

= 7.01, degree of freedom = 2, p < 0.05)

About 51.6% of the respondents did not know that with effect from YA

2006, female taxpayers are able to claim husband relief amounted to RM3,000 as

long as her husband had no source of income or has no total income to be

jointly assessed with her. Prior to YA 2006, the wife was only entitled to claim

husband relief of RM3,000 if the husband had elected to jointly assess with the

wife. In respect of child relief, with the effect of YA 2006, if taxpayer had any

child who was studying overseas, the taxpayer is entitled to child relief

amounting to RM4,000 per child. The survey found that more than 45% of the

respondents were not aware of the changes. In addition, in order to encourage

parents to place their disabled children to the higher level of education, another

RM5,000 on top of child relief of RM4,000 will be given to the taxpayers. Only

22.1% of the respondents were aware of this provision and almost half of the

respondents were not aware of the additional disabled child relief. The plausible

explanations for not being aware of husband relief and child relief could be due

to the fact that 64.7% of the respondents were single.

To probe the issue further, Pearson’s Chi-Square tests were performed to

test if there are any differences in the awareness of husband relief, child relief

and disable child relief between those who are married and those who are

single. The results show there was significant difference at 10% significant

level. Those who were married were more aware than single individuals at the

time of study.

In addition, the survey found out that nearly half of the respondents did

not know that with effect from YA 2001, every taxpayer is entitled to RM350

rebate if personal chargeable income was less than RM35,000. As for the

computer rebate, about 44% of the respondents were not aware of the changes

of RM500 cash rebate for buying personal computer once every five years with

effect from YA 2005. The results somewhat indicate that the majority of

respondents did not possess the latest tax knowledge. Hence, the lack of tax

knowledge may cause them to pay extra tax in the era of self-assessment system.

To further examine the tax knowledge of the respondents, knowledge score

of Eriksen and Fallan (1996) was adapted and used in this study. Responses

with ‘Yes’ answers are given a score of 3 (well informed), those who answered

‘No’ are given a score of 1 (misinformed) and those answered ‘Not sure’ received

a score of 2 (un-informed). Table 3 presents a summary of the total score obtained

by the respondents. The results show that merely 5.8% (11/190) obtained full

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marks and 15.8% (30/190) of the respondents obtained a minimum score of 10

marks. In turn, based on tax knowledge scores, the respondents were categorized

into three groups namely, high, medium and low level of tax knowledge. The

result shows that only 23.7% of the respondents possessed high level of tax

knowledge, 35.8% and 40.5% had medium and low level of basic tax knowledge

(see Figure 2).

In considering that the self-assessment system has been implemented since

YA 2004 on salaried individuals, these results somewhat indicated that the

respondents’ did not have adequate up-to-date tax knowledge. The plausible

explanations are firstly, majority of the non-accounting undergraduates surveyed

had never received any formal tax education, and secondly, for those who had

learned about tax, their tax knowledge were not up-to-date due to the annual

changes in tax policy. The finding of this study is somewhat consistent with

studies conducted by Amrizah and Nero (2005) as well Loo and Ho (2005),

whereby the tax literary status of Malaysian salaried individual was below average

and majority of Malaysian salaried individuals did not possess up-to-date

knowledge about personal taxation and they might have filed incorrect returns.

Overall, this study suggests that non-accounting undergraduates need to be

formally exposed to tax knowledge to increase the general level of tax literacy.

High, 24%

Medium,

36%

Low, 40%

Table 3: A Summary of Tax Knowledge Scores from the Responses

Score Frequency Percentage Score Frequency Percentage

(%) (%)

10.00 30 15.8 21.00 10 5.3

11.00 7 3.7 22.00 10 5.3

12.00 13 6.8 23.00 4 2.1

13.00 5 2.6 24.00 9 4.7

14.00 7 3.7 25.00 9 4.7

15.00 6 3.2 26.00 6 3.2

16.00 9 4.7 27.00 6 3.2

17.00 1 0.5 28.00 3 1.6

18.00 13 6.8 29.00 1 0.5

19.00 15 7.9 30.00 11 5.8

20.00 15 7.9

Figure 2: Level of Tax Knowledge

Low, 40%

High, 24%

Medium, 36%

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Introducing Tax Education in Non-Accounting Curriculum

The survey respondents were asked to indicate if they want tax subject to

be introduced into non-accounting curriculum, on a 5 point scale, anchored on

1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Table 4 presents the findings. The

findings showed that the respondents were in favor that tax education be

introduced, with a mean score of 3.34 on a 5 point scale (significant at p < 0.001).

Nevertheless, some respondents thought that tax subject should be offered as

an elective subject instead of compulsory subject, with a mean score of 3.29 on

a 5 point scale (significant at p < 0.001). The plausible explanation for this is that

some respondents were concerned that there are many subjects that they need

to learn, as such, there may be no room to incorporate taxation as a core subject

into the curriculum. In addition, it is encouraging to find that the survey found

a substantial majority of the respondents thought that tax education/subject

should be introduced at the undergraduate level, with a mean score of 3.37 on

a 5 point scale (significant at p < 0.001).

Table 4: Responses on ‘Introduction of Tax Education into

Non-accounting Curriculum’

Statement Mean # SD t-statistic p-value

a. Tax subject should be introduced at my 3.34* 1.156 4.017 0.000

faculty

b. Tax subject should be introduced as an 3.29* 1.058 3.841 0.000

elective course at my faculty

c. The tax education/subject should be 3.37* 0.943 5.383 0.000

introduced at the undergraduate level

# All mean scores were measured based on a 5 point scale, anchored on 1 (strongly

disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

* Significant at p < 0.001

Next, when asked what are the most relevant tax topics that they hope to

learn should tax subject be offered in the non-accounting curriculum. Table 5

shows the three topics that the respondents would like to learn the most are tax

planning for individual, personal taxation and basic concepts of taxation; the

mean scores are 3.68, 3.64 and 3.63 respectively (significant at p < 0.001). These

findings are consistent with Norazah’s (2006) study whereby she solicited the

opinions of Malaysian academics on tax topics that should be introduced into

non-accounting curriculum.

Overall, this study indicates that surveyed respondents hoped to learn

about tax planning and personal taxation. The next three topics most favored

by the respondents are taxation for small business, company taxation and tax

planning for companies, the mean scores are of 3.52, 3.49 and 3.46 respectively

(significant at p < 0.001). The probable explanations for these findings are as

more than half of surveyed respondents were working in private sectors and

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some were sole-proprietors (see Table 1 for the respondents’ profiles). Thus, by

learning these topics, they believed that they would gain some technical and

conceptual knowledge about business taxation and tax planning for company.

It appears that working adults and sole proprietors wished to learn about the

application of taxation in business.

Conclusion

This study has several limitations. Firstly, this study is exploratory in nature

and a rather simplistic approach was taken in data analysis. Secondly, the

sample was confined to non-accounting undergraduates from four largest

faculties in one of the public universities in Malaysia. Lastly, it is a cross-

sectional study; hence, the opinions of the respondents might change over the

time. Therefore, care must be exercised in interpreting and generalizing the

results.

This paper has attempted to find out the extent of quest for introducing tax

education into non-accounting curriculum in higher learning institutions. By

surveying the views of 190 working adults pursuing off-campus non-accounting

degree programs in one of the public universities in Malaysia, the findings

suggest that prudent approach is required to educate undergraduates (the

future taxpayers) from non-accounting disciplines to learn about taxation, as

pragmatically, formal tax education is one of the possible solutions to equip

future taxpayer with basic tax knowledge for greater tax compliance. In view of

the fact that taxation plays a significant role in a country’s growth and economic

Table 5: Relevant Tax Topics that Should be Introduced in

Non-Accounting Curriculum

Tax topic Mean SD t-statistic p-value Ranking

1 Tax Planning for individual 3.68* 0.984 9.583 0.000 1

2 Basic concepts of taxation and 3.64* 0.970 9.129 0.000 2

tax policies

3 Personal taxation 3.63* 0.982 8.866 0.000 3

4 Taxation for small business 3.52* 0.901 7.890 0.000 4

5 Company taxation 3.49* 0.907 7.439 0.000 5

6 Tax Planning for companies 3.46* 0.895 7.137 0.000 6

7 Real Property Gain Tax (RPGT) 3.45* 0.946 6.522 0.000 7

8 Service tax and Sales Tax 3.44* 0.945 6.373 0.000 8

9 Partnership taxation 3.37* 0.927 5.556 0.000 9

# All mean scores were measured based on a 5 point scale, anchored on 1 (strongly

disagree) to 5 (strongly agree)

* Significant at p < 0.001

Bab 3.pmd 08/07/2009, 11:1048

Introducing Tax Education in Non-Accounting Curriculum

development, it is imperative for accounting academics and the relevant policy

makers to seriously consider developing a tax education framework for non-

accounting curriculum in higher education. The long-term educational benefits

of introducing formal tax education in higher education should receive sufficient

attention from the Ministry of Higher Education and other relevant authorities

as we move into the era of self-assessment tax system.

It needs to be acknowledged that just based on one study, the argument

for introducing taxation to non accounting students is not compelling enough.

Hence, future study can be done to examine if those who have been exposed to

tax education at tertiary levels will be more compliant that those who have not;

one could research if there is a significant difference in the compliance behaviors

of these two groups. Future study may be conducted to solicit the views of

non-accounting undergraduates on a large scale, for example a nation-wide

survey across Malaysia or a cross-country survey.

Endnote

It is worth noting here that in some cases, these 1.3 million individuals do not

fall in the tax net because they do not have any taxable income or their income

is below the taxable threshold.

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