The Identity Social of Tax Compliance: How it Impacts Manufacturing Business

Abstract

This paper used a qualitative method to investigate the impacts of manufacturer’s social identity on their tax attitudes and how these effects affect firm’s tax compliance. The data from 101 respondents reported that membership and identity affect their firm’s tax compliance, but not private and public collective self-esteem. The result showed that dependence on the community and stakeholder views on corporate identity are considered important by companies to increase public trust. Meanwhile, private and public collective self-esteem were no longer the key. It implies that the former is more likely to have a higher cost of tax collection to represent tax compliance, which may restrict funds for their public sector and adversely affects its functionality. This is consistent with the previous findings that identify socially impacted tax compliance, instead of self-esteem. Research results for manufacturing managers related to strengthening social identity factors in order to improve overall corporate tax compliance, such as joining tax communities, professional membership’s and the like. By having a clear social identity, managers have channels to discuss tax issues and find solutions to tax problems more easily.
 Keywords: tax compliance, identity social, membership, community, self-esteem