Towards A Unified Zakat System

officials improving the quality of corporate financialreports has the lowest score of 4.03. The two groups alsodiffer in the second lowest scores with investors having amean response of 4.15 for improving the quality of corporatefinancial reports, while government officials scored a meanof 4.08 for improving the reputation of companies.Table 6.15(b)The potential benefits from Zakat implementationFreq. Mean Rank Sub country mean SD MIN MAX Chi-sq P. valueBA KU SA UAESatisfy religious 159 4.64 1 4.73 4.69 4.67 4.44. 533 3 5 7.77 . 051dutiesImprove social 159 4.57 2 4.70 4.62 4.51 4.47. 522 3 5 4.32 . 229justiceImprove 159 4.25 4 4.30 4.36 4.18 4.18economicefficiencyImprove the 159 3.95 5 4.12 4.00 3.83 3.89reputation ofcompaniesIncrease local 159 3.91 6 3.85 4.05 3.86 3.87investmentPromote 159 4.30 3 4.52 4.26 4.27 4.18charitableorganisationsImprove the 159 3.85 7 3.79 4.03 3.80 3.79quality ofcorporatefinancial reportsBA= Bahrain KU= Kuwa it SA= Saudi Arabi a UAE= United Arab Emirates. 779 2 5 1.23. 747. 973 1 5 1.79 . 617. 870 2 5 1.57 . 666. 717 2 5 3.87 . 275. 899 2 5 1.78 . 618The results of the statistical tests presented in table6.15(b) indicate no significant difference in attitude amongthe respondents from various countries. The variety offinancial (and Zakat) regulation, religious conservatism,and government policy towards Zakat does not seem to haveany effect on the respondents' opinions about the potentialbenefits of Zakat implementation. Although there are minordifferences in the individual country's rankings, these canbe attributed to chance as suggested by the significancelevel displayed in the table. Thus, overall, the ranking251