Awareness of tax awareness of secondary school students (Tokat province example)

This research aims to determine the awareness of secondary school 6th and 7th grade students about tax awareness and to determine how they perceive the concept of tax. Within the scope of the research, in which the survey model, which is one of the quantitative research methods, was used, a questionnaire was applied to the 6th and 7th grades, consisting of a total of 408 students in the province of Tokat in the 2021-2022 academic year. The research was carried out by determining 408 students by simple random sampling method. As a data collection tool in the research; A tax awareness questionnaire developed by Zorlu and Kaya (2012) was used. The 8 questions in the first part of the questionnaire, which consists of 40 questions in total, are aimed at learning the socio-demographic characteristics of the students. In the second part of the questionnaire, 12 questions were included to measure the views of the students on taxation. In the third part, a 5-point Likert scale consisting of 20 questions ranging from "I totally agree" to "I strongly disagree" was used. Before the application of the questionnaire, it was stated to the students that this data would only be used for academic purposes. In line with the purpose of the study, t-test, one of the parametric tests, with the help of SPSS for Windows 22.0 program, in order to determine the difference between the gender and class variable groups of the students participating in the research; In order to determine the difference between the groups of age, father's education level, mother's education level, father's occupation, mother's occupation and monthly income of the family, comparisons were made by analyzing one of the parametric tests, ANOVA test. Frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation values were used in the descriptive evaluation of the tax awareness survey according to students. As a result of the research, it was concluded that students' awareness of tax awareness was low. Within the scope of the research, with the tax awareness awareness of the students; It has been determined that there is a significant difference between the variables of age, class, gender, father's education level, mother's education level, father's occupation, mother's occupation and students' average monthly income. In this context, tax-related gains that are limited to the 6th class can also take place at the 7th and 8th grade levels. Since these are the places where students hear the concept of tax the most, it is possible to focus on tax education through family and school in order to increase their awareness of tax awareness. Key words: tax, tax awareness, tax education, tax literacy, middle school students