Evaluation of electronic tax practices in terms of tax audit in Turkey

Due to the ease of accessing information in our age, where new concepts have been introduced, from cloud technology to automation, blockchain, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, the use of information technologies globally is increasing every day due to the significant increase in information sharing. As it is known, the developments in the field of information and communication technology have been shaped according to the wishes and needs of individuals and have continued to have an impact in many areas of life. In this direction, the way of functioning and structures of the economic, political and social order of countries have also changed. Public services provided to citizens have undergone technology-based changes and have been transferred to the electronic environment. In parallel with these developments, important steps have been taken in the use of electronic applications in Turkey. In this context, with the implementation of the VEDOP project, which is an automation project that can be counted among the largest e-government projects, most of the taxation processes have been made electronically. Thus, taxpayers have become able to carry out their tax-related transactions electronically without actually going to the tax offices. Electronic tax applications are of great importance for states in terms of opportunities such as providing regular tax revenue and tracking taxpayers under surveillance. Likewise, in order to cope with the increasing number of taxpayers and the workload, tax administrations have deemed it appropriate to move their activities to the digital environment due to the increase in the use of multimedia devices such as computers, mobile phones, tablets, and the Internet, which can be described as digitalization. But technological change does not necessarily have to be positive. There are also risks arising from technological innovations. Therefore, in addition to opportunities, some difficulties are also encountered in the digitalization of tax offices. Economic activities carried out on the Internet cause complexity in the implementation of tax audits and make it difficult, since the Internet environment is a suitable area for tax evasion. Accordingly, it has become a necessity to conduct tax audits electronically. In order to reduce tax losses, new audit methods and techniques are developed by using information technologies. Therefore, risk-based audit systems have been developed by tax authorities in this regard, and audits have begun to be carried out through risk analysis systems. In Turkey, some studies have been carried out in this regard. In particular, for the purpose of studying electronic ledgers and documents developed by the Head of the Revenue Administration and the Head of the Tax Supervisory Board, there are VDK-VEDAS, VDK-RAS programs, as well as KDVIRA, OTVIRA etc. risk analysis systems have started to be used. In this study, the effect of electronic tax applications on tax auditing is included. As a result of the study, it has been concluded that electronic applications do not directly increase the effectiveness of tax auditing due to the presence of other factors affecting tax audit, but indirectly affect tax audit positively because they contribute to the increase of tax compliance.