Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between tax evasion and certain demographic factors such as location, engagement of tax agent, size and type of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) industry in Malaysia. Design/methodology/approach In this study, using proprietary tax audit data from the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia (IRBM) on the 2011 tax returns of SMEs, the authors run a multiple regression analysis to examine the impact of location, agent, type of industry, size of enterprise and type of tax evasion on SMEs’ tax evasion in Malaysia. Findings The authors find that tax evasion among SMEs in Malaysia is the highest when the business is located in a suburban environment and has no tax agent. Tax evasion is also influenced by the size of the SME (micro or medium). Originality/value This study gives insight that the IRBM can use to aid its collection department in profiling SMEs that have a higher tendency to evade paying tax.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the efficiency of selected conventional and Islamic unit trust companies in Malaysia during the period 2002 to 2005.Design/methodology/approachThe paper adopts Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to investigate efficiency, as measured by the Malmquist index, which is decomposed into two components: efficiency change and technical change indexes.FindingsThe study indicates that technical efficiency is the main contributor to enhancing the efficiency of the Malaysian unit trust industry. In addition, the larger the size of the unit trust companies, the more inefficient the performance. In comparing the efficiency of unit trust companies, the study finds that some of the Islamic unit trust companies perform better than their conventional counterparts.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is limited to five Islamic unit trust companies. Thus, the findings of this study are indicative, but inconclusive for the unit trust industry as a whole.Practical implicationsThe results have two important implications for both conventional and Islamic unit trust companies in Malaysia. First, the deterioration of total factor productivity (TFP) in the unit trust industry in Malaysia is due to the deficiency of innovation in technical components. Second, the size of the unit trust companies has an adverse effect on the TFP performance.Originality/valueThe contribution of this study is that it analyzes the efficiency of the two types of unit trust industry which are important and relevant for Malaysia. This significance arises from the dual financial system, in which the Islamic unit trust companies operate in parallel with their conventional counterparts. The comparison sheds some light on the performance of the Islamic unit trust companies, whose operations are based on profit‐sharing, in contrast to the conventional unit trust companies.

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Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to analyze the possibility of relying on the rental rate to price Islamic home financing product. Design/methodology/approach -By comparing two models consisting of either rental rate or lending rate (LR) and selected macroeconomic variables that could influence property value, the study focuses on the Malaysian data covering the period from 1990 to 2006. The study adopts several econometric time-series analysis, such as the autoregressive distributed lag estimates, bi-variate Granger causality, and multivariate causality based on the vector error-correction model. Findings -The study finds consistent evidence that the rental price (RP) is a better alternative than the LR to price Islamic home financing product. In particular, the rental rate is found to be resilient to short-term economic volatility, while in the long run, it is truly reflective of the economic fundamentals. Practical implications -This feature of the RP renders it as a fair pricing mechanism for the Islamic home financing product. Results of this study contribute towards finding an alternative benchmark for the Islamic home financing product which is currently using the conventional interest rate as its benchmark. Originality/value -To the best of the authors' knowledge, the current study is the first of its kind which provides empirical evidence for the possibility of relying on the rental rate to price Islamic home financing product.