Income taxpayers' perception of environmental taxes: Afyonkarahisar example

The rapid population growth of our old planet, which has exceeded eight billion since the 20th century, has also brought human-induced ecological degradation. Excessive industrial production and consumption, cutting off oxygen sources and reducing carbon dioxide absorption by destroying forests, which are considered the lungs of the earth, uncontrolled and unconscious consumption, problems arising from waste management, agricultural pollution, decrease and depletion of natural resources; They are the environmental repercussions of the degradation of soil, water and atmosphere. The protection, sustainable use and management of the environment, which is considered a public good, is a responsibility that is in the interest of societies on a global scale. Therefore, environmental protection and sustainability must be supported by policies that are generally regulated and promoted by states and international organizations. The fact that environmental problems have no boundaries has made international cooperation necessary in solving environmental pollution. In Turkey, since 1983, with the adoption of the Environmental Law, environmental policies have been tried to be produced in line with the principles of sustainable environmental development. Threats to ecosystems make individuals increasingly aware of the physical environment. Our only wish is to establish a global awareness in terms of protecting the environment, which is our common heritage that we will leave to future generations. In this context, the aim of the study is to reveal the environmental tax perceptions of income taxpayers in the province of Afyonkarahisar with various tests. In the first part of the study, which was prepared in three parts; the conceptual framework regarding tax, tax perception and environmental tax was drawn, in the second part, analyses were made with bibliometric network maps, and in the last part, the findings obtained by measuring the perceptions of environmental taxes with a qualitative research on the sample determined as income taxpayers in Afyonkarahisar were shared. Some of these findings can be listed as; gender is an important factor affecting tax perception, perceptions of some tax types vary according to age groups, those with a longer tax liability period have more knowledge on environmental and urban planning issues and have high sensitivity to the environment.