DOI: 10.36347/sjebm.2014.v01i10.011

Pages: 525-531

In developing countries taxation is a challenging topic and has attracted increasing attention in the last two decades. Many problems observed like poor administration, failing to collect sufficient tax revenues, tax structures where tax horizontal and vertical equity considerations are not integrated, lack of government and economic stability. In many developing countries it is observed that there is low capacity of tax administration to monitor compliance among taxpayers. The voluntary compliance behavior of the tax payers is determined by various factors and identifying these factors and treating them accordingly should be the central premises of any tax system in order to maintain voluntary compliance with taxation in Mekelle City, Ethiopia. Based on this fact, a survey data for this study were collected based on questioners from a sample of Mekelle city business income tax payers by distributing the total sample purposely to three sub cities namely Kedamay weyane ,Hawelti and Adi-haki using proportional sampling technique. The scope of the study was limited to individual business income tax payers of the three sub- cities. Data were collected from 180 respondents and analyzed using descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation. The study was summarized and presented in tabular form representing proportions and percentages are used in analyzing the data collected. Based on the response of the respondents, certain factors were found to be the determinants of taxpayers’ voluntary compliance. These are tax fairness and equity, organizational strength of the tax authority, awareness level of the taxpayers, socio-cultural factors, and attitude of taxpayers towards the government.