1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.0 Chapter ... - DSpace@UM

1.6 Limitations of the StudyThe findings in this study need to be interpreted within its limitations. First, the studyuses a convenient sample of registered taxpayers i.e. taxpayers from four IRB FederalTerritory Offices. Therefore the data may be biased because the non paying taxpayers’are not included in the survey. However, generally taxpayers’ who had adequatetaxpaying experience participated in the survey. Second, this study restricts itself toexamine only individual taxpayers’ perceptions, leaving out corporations and other formsof entities. Third, the sample should have covered at least one more geographic area;Selangor ( IRB offices at Petaling Jaya, Shah Alam, and Kelang) and the sample sizecould have been bigger for making generalizations on the findings. Fourth, 78% of thesubjects were employed (salaried) whereas the self employed or having own businesseswere a small portion only. One reason could be at the time of data collection it was thefiling period for employment income taxpayers (deadline 30/4/2008). Fifth, the tax lawsare not the same among countries and therefore it would not be advisable to benchmarkfindings of one country to another. Tax education among jurisdiction is not even.Taxation is an area which is sensitive to the subjects to reveal their true self about theirtax reporting behaviour because they might think it is a very private matter altogether.Lastly tax data are regarded highly confidential and reported information is also veryrestricted in establishing any conclusions. The last paragraph in this chapter is on theorganization of the study.14