The Effects of Compliance and Growth Opinions on SMEs Compliance Decisions: An Empirical Evidence from Ghana

摘要

Generally, there has been an increase in the trend of interest of majority of people evaluating tax compliance decisions due to the fact that taxes help in funding public expenditures as well as boosting the expansion of most SME businesses. On the other hand, there has also been a sudden increase of interest in the development of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs). In most developing and developed countries, SMEs are the spine of economic growth. Therefore, it is necessary that concentration is not only given to the generation of taxes but also the wellbeing of tax payers hence, SMEs. However, the current situation of Ghana shows an imbalance between these two major contributing factors. Due to such imbalance, the paper analyses the effects of perception and growth opinions on tax compliance decisions in Ghana. Specifically, the paper seeks to analyze respondents’ subjective opinions on the growth of their businesses, how their growth opinions affect their perception on taxes and how those perceptions contributes to tax compliance. In analyzing SMEs compliance issues on taxes, a total of 840 questionnaires were submitted to registered SMEs across all the ten (10) regions of Ghana. The data was analyzed using Stata 12 and E-views 7.1 concurrently. The results of this research revealed that SMEs have negative subjective opinions on their growth thus having negative effect on their general perception towards taxes thereby posing a negative effect on SMEs compliance to taxes. The findings of the research will give an insight to the GRA (Ghana Revenue Authority) in formulating strategies on taxation and SMEs growth in an efficient and effective way.