The effect of tax consciousness on tax compliance according to financial sociological approach: Case of Antalya

It is the cornerstone of fiscal sociology that it focuses on how taxes and public expenditures are affected by political, economical, cultural and historical elements, and how it affects these elements in turn. Fiscal sociology aims to analyze the moral, economical, institutional, cultural, political and historical parts of society and the political structure, by making sociological deductions of taxes and public expenditures. In this study, with a fiscal sociological approach, the effects of tax awareness on tax compliance was analyzed using a sample consisting of active taxpayers in Antalya. The aim of this study is to determine what could be the optimal legal arrangements while keeping the taxpayers' views and perceptions on taxes on a positive perspective, and to build a consensus on how the current tax auditing related laws are interpreted by the taxpayers, and how these regulations affect the tax awareness of the taxpayers. At this point, this study is important so that regulations that can minimize tax audit risk can be implemented in time, and tax compliance can be achieved by instilling tax awareness without repercussions on tax tables and audits. A survey focusing on 196 taxpayers that are actively operating in Antalya was carried out, and these taxpayers' tax awareness, and the items that affect this awareness, such as gender, educational background, newspaper reading and the following of economical news, was observed. The hypotheses developed in the study were tested using parametric tests, unpaired two sample t tests and ANOVA. According to fiscal sociological approach, It is obvious that tax compliance cant be achieved with the tax policies of public authority alone. As a result of the study sociological, psychological, spiritual, economical and cultural items are are found to be key factors in the facilitation of tax compliance. Keywords: Fiscal Sociology, Tax Awareness, Tax Compliance, Tax Ethics, Informal Economy