Determinants of Digital Service Tax Compliance by Ecommerce Retailing Firms in Kenya

Abstract

The expansion of e-commerce has a direct link to an increase in online sales, tax collections and revenue generation in many countries of the world. E-commerce global trade volume continues to grow annually in many countries and has gained increasing importance between 2000 and 2020 and beyond. Equally, the Covid-19 pandemic around 2020 and beyond had contributed immensely to the accelerated growth, spread, adoption and utilization of ecommerce via the available e-commerce platforms globally. Changes in the international trading policies and electronic taxation practices now require e-commerce platform operators to pay sales tax and users to pay VAT. The tax payments reflect the users' compliance with tax obligations for their countries’ economic growth and revenue generation. The objective of the current study was to establish how selected determinants affect digital tax compliance by e-commerce retailing firms in Kenya. The determinants considered in the current study were; tax rate, attitude and perceptions, income level, enforcement measures, and tax knowledge. It also aimed at reviewing the increasing body of theoretical and empirical studies that have endeavoured to examine tax compliance. The target population was 100 e-commerce retailing firms in Kenya. A convenience and purposive sampling technique was used to identify and pick the e-commerce retailing firms. Primary sources of data, utilizing a closed ended questionnaires as the study data collection tool, were employed. This was a cross-sectional study. The study applied both descriptive statistics as well as inferential statistics that entailed correlation and multiple linear regression analysis. The current study findings revealed that most of the online retailers were aware of digital services tax and that tax knowledge augments compliance to a moderate extent. The study findings further revealed that majority of the online retailers have registered their respective businesses for digital services tax and that the online retailers, to a moderate extent, comply with the digital services tax. Further findings were that that enforcement measures and tax knowledge are significantly positively correlated to digital tax compliance. However, the study findings revealed that tax rates, attitude and perceptions, and income levels are not significantly correlated to digital tax compliance. Additional findings were that the determinants entailing; tax rates, attitude and perceptions, income levels, enforcement measures, and tax knowledge, significantly influence and can be utilized to predict digital tax compliance. The final findings were that none of the determinants of digital tax compliance, in isolation, significantly influence digital tax compliance. Tax rate, income level, enforcement measures, and tax knowledge have a positive insignificant influence while attitude and perceptions have a negative insignificant relationship on digital tax compliance. Policy and practice recommendations were made to the policy makers in the Treasury and the board of the Kenya Revenue Authority to set optimal digital service tax rates so as to enhance compliance. Additional recommendations are made to the policy makers to augment tax education geared towards changing the tax payers’ attitudes and perceptions towards the current digital service tax. Final recommendations are made to the policy makers not to utilize any determinant of digital tax compliance in isolation but to utilize all of them in unison in order to augment digital tax compliance. Recommendations are also made to consultants and online retailer firms’ management to comply with regards to digital tax as non-compliance can lead to high penalties as a result of enforcement. Additional recommendations are also made to the practitioners to try to gather tax knowledge to enable compliance to the digital tax.