The role of higher education in terms of tax morale and tax compliance: The case of Gaziosmanpaşa University

Today, taxes are an indispensable source of income for the states. Taxes are of vital importance both for the sake of the societies and for the provision of public services that are needed by the societies. In the collection of taxes, there are a number of duties to tax administration and taxpayers. From the point of view of taxpayers, sacrificing the income they earn is a serious burden to give some of them taxes. Some taxpayers may even applies to roads tax avoidance, tax evasion, unregistered etc. in order to get rid of the tax burden. Prevention of such behaviours is important both for the welfare of the society and for the continuation of the society. It is impossible for tax administrators to fully control all taxpayers in the prevention of negative behaviour against taxation. Therefore, increasing taxpayers' tax morale and tax compliance levels will be one of the most effective ways to reduce such behaviour. There are socio-economic, financial, legal, demographic, etc. factors in occuring tax morale and tax compliance. It is thought that importance of education is big in taxation area as it is especially in every area. For this reason, examining the role of education in the formation and enhancement of tax morale and tax compliance constitutes the essence of the study. Gaziosmanpaşa University Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, which is the taxpayer of the future, examined the effect of the education provided during the period of higher education on the level of tax morale and tax compliance. 590 questionnaires were administered by the students of the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences. The obtained data were analyzed using SPSS 16 Package Program. Factor analysis, One-way ANOVA and independent sample t-tests were used in the analysis. As a result of the analysis, it's found that tax morale and tax compliance have significant relationships with university students' departments, classes, types of learning, their ages, gender, region and area where their families live, family and personal income. Keywords: Tax Morale, Tax Compliance, Education