The relationship between simple procedure and tax awareness and ethics: The case of Çorum province

Taxes, which are the leading source of financing the services needed by societies and the public, are met with different reactions from taxpayers. In cases where taxes cannot be collected sufficiently, states develop different solutions such as increases in existing taxes, new tax types and borrowing. In this context, it is important to develop the individual's tax awareness and tax morale sufficiently to ensure voluntary tax compliance in order to minimize tax reactions in society. Some regulations have been made in our Turkish tax system with the Tax Procedure Law No. 7338 and the Law on Amendments to Certain Laws, published in the Official Gazette No. 31640 dated October 26, 2021. With the regulation, which is described as a type of temporary tax exemption, income tax exemption has been introduced to the commercial earnings of taxpayers subject to the simple procedure. Although its contribution to the central government budget is relatively low by taxing the earnings obtained subject to a simple procedure, it affects a large number of taxpayers. The fact that no other studies were found on the taxpayer group subject to the simple procedure, which is the sample population in the literature reviews, distinguishes our study from other studies and it is envisaged that our study will provide a guide for relevant studies to be conducted on this population in the future. In the study, a survey consisting of various attitude expressions was applied to examine the attitudes and thoughts of taxpayers subject to the simple procedure operating in Çorum province, regarding the concepts of tax awareness and tax morale. According to the findings obtained as a result of the analysis, it has been observed that although the commercial earnings of taxpayers subject to the simple procedure are exempt from income tax, the number of taxpayers who think that the tax burden is high is relatively high. According to demographic factors affecting tax morale, a significant positive relationship was found between gender and tax awareness and tax morale, and between education and tax morale, tax perception and tax burden. However, although simple tax taxpayers in Çorum province have high tax awareness levels, it is seen that they do not have the same level of tax morale.