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

are more compliant than younger taxpayers. The younger are risk seeking, less sensitiveto penalties. In the present study, respondents were asked to complete demographicquestions about age, gender, and education and employment status and were tested.AgeOlder taxpayers’ are more compliant then younger taxpayers’. However, according toDevos,( 2001) there have been significant number of studies that have found norelationship between age and compliance. In relation to this Richardson & Sawyer (2001)proposed four possible explanations for this inconsistency; first the significance of agedoes not extend to all taxpayers’. Second, there is inconsistent definition of taxpayernoncompliance being used throughout the research. Third, when age is considered withother variables its impact on taxpayers’ compliance is diluted, and finally the interactionof age with other variables is disturbed. Wenzel (2002) stated that the impact of agedepends on the specific form of tax paying behaviour and this could be one reason forhaving inconsistent results. Age has been related to different opportunities to avoid taxe.g. older taxpayer would have acquired sufficient assets or wealthy therefore their taxnoncompliance will be lower compared to younger taxpayers’ who are still active inacquiring wealth and plan strategies such as underreporting and exaggerate deductions.GenderTorgler (1993) investigated the role of gender difference towards tax compliance.Hasseldine (1999) stated, there exist voluminous literature on gender differences but intax compliance studies little emphasis has been focused on gender and the reasons for the42