TAX AWARENESS AS A MEDIATOR: THE IMPACT ON NON-ECONOMIC DETERMINANTS AND TAX COMPLIANCE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55197/qjssh.v7i3.1050Keywords:
tax compliance, tax awareness, quality of tax service, tax moraleAbstract
This research examines whether Tax Awareness (TA) is the mediator that affects the influence of Tax Knowledge (TK), Quality of Tax Service (QTS), Tax Morale (TM) and National Pride (NP) on Tax Compliance (TS) among Shenzhen taxpayers (N = 1,080). With the usage of PLS-SEM (SmartPLS v4), the measurement model was highly reliable and had convergent validity; model fit was moderate (SRMR ≈ 0.05). All four precursors substantially raised TA (proximate paths: TM→TA ≈ 0.26, TK≈0.25, QTS≈0.14, NP≈0.10), contributing to R²(TA) ≈ 0.29. Compliance, however, was predicted directly by QTS (β ≈ 0.33, p < .001) and TM (β ≈ 0.16, p < .001); TK, NP, and TA were non-significant, the TA→TS path was close to zero, and no indirect (mediated) effects through TA were significant (R²(TS) ≈ 0.15). The results suggest that service quality and internalized moral obligation are the most proximal compliance levers in this scenario, with awareness being more of an effect than a path to behavior.
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