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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 9, No. 4

Publication Date: April 25, 2022

DOI:10.14738/assrj.94.12118. Nainggolan, S. G. V., Wahyuni, P., Gustina, I., & Rinaldi, M. (2022). Factors that can Influence the Motivation of Individual Tax

Payment in Medan City. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 9(4). 44-54.

Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom

Factors that can Influence the Motivation of Individual Tax

Payment in Medan City

Susan Grace Veranita Nainggolan

Department of Accounting

Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Ekonomi Eka Prasetya, Medan, Indonesia

Putri wahyuni

Department of Accounting

Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Ekonomi Eka Prasetya, Medan, Indonesia

Ihdina Gustina

Department of Management

Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Ekonomi Eka Prasetya, Medan, Indonesia

Muammar Rinaldi

Department of Accounting

Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Ekonomi Eka Prasetya, Medan, Indonesia

ABSTRACT

Factors That Can Affect the Motivation of Individual Tax Payment in Medan City.

This study aimed to look at the factors that influence the motivation to pay taxes

which include Tax Knowledge, Service Quality, and Taxpayer Awareness. The type

of data used in this research is quantitative data. Analysis of the data in this study

utilized Multiple Linear Regression Test by transforming the data using the interval

successive method (MSI). This study proved that Tax Knowledge, Service Quality,

and Taxpayer Awareness spurred public compliance in paying taxes. Therefore, the

Tax Service Office can use social media such as Instagram or Facebook accounts to

quickly disseminate information about taxation knowledge.

Keywords: Tax Knowledge, Service Quality, Mandatory Awareness, Motivation

INTRODUCTION

Infrastructure development, which is increasing rapidly, is forcing the government to work

hard in term of increasing the state revenue, which is supported by taxes. Taxes have an

important role in the source of state revenue because the largest state revenue comes from the

tax sector. Tax is a person's contribution to the state treasury based on the Law with no direct

feedback that can be shown and used to pay general expenses (Adincha, 2012). Taxes

themselves make a major contribution to economic development in Indonesia and are an

important source of funds for national financing. There are many efforts made by the

Directorate General of Taxes to maximize tax revenues, such as the tax census, which encourage

all individual and corporate taxpayers who have not carried out their tax obligations can

immediately implement them by tax provisions. Abdullah (2018) revealed that taxes are still

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Nainggolan, S. G. V., Wahyuni, P., Gustina, I., & Rinaldi, M. (2022). Factors that can Influence the Motivation of Individual Tax Payment in Medan

City. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 9(4). 44-54.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.94.12118

the mainstay of the government in term of state revenues as the fund for national development

to realize welfare for the community.

Tax problems in Indonesia continue to occur, even though taxes are an obligation for the people

as citizens, but there are still many citizens who do not pay taxes. Many personal business

taxpayers do not pay taxes, this is due to the low motivation of the public in paying taxes. This

can be related to the theory of goal setting which explains that the intention to achieve goals is

the main source of work motivation (Locke, 1968). Motivation is one of the factors that

encourage someone in taking an action, if the taxpayer's motivation is high in paying his tax

obligations, then development in Indonesia can proceed as planned. The city of Medan is one of

33 level II regions in North Sumatra, in 2020 the population of the city of Medan reaches

2,435,252 people, of which 36,522 people are in the Medan Polonia sub-district (Central Bureau

of Statistics, 2020). One of the tax service offices located in the Medan Polonia sub-district is

the KPP Pratama Medan, the people’s participation in paying taxes in this sub-district is still

classified as low, and this is due to the lack of enthusiasm that arises from the community.

Improving this requires high motivation. Success in tax revenue cannot be separated from the

motivation of taxpayers (Abdullah & Nainggolan, 2018). From the results of interviews with the

Public Relations section at the Medan Polonia Tax Service Office, it can be seen that several

problems occured, namely the low motivation of taxpayers' willingness to pay their taxes so

that some taxpayers receive sanctions, the issuance of forced letters to pay taxes to taxpayers

and the low number of Annual Tax Return that goes into the Medan Polonia Tax Service Office.

The problems that arise in the Tax Service Office are characteristics that describe the lack of

motivation to pay taxes. Abdullah (2018) stated that the cause of the decrease in motivation to

pay taxes is knowledge of taxes. In his research on the effect of knowledge of taxpayers,

awareness of taxpayers on motivation to pay taxes explained that there is a positive influence

between knowledge of taxpayers and motivation to pay taxes, knowledge of taxpayers is very

important in increasing people's willingness to pay taxes. Tax knowledge is an important factor

in helping taxpayers to carry out their obligations. Knowledge of taxation, which means

taxpayers know the basic information of taxation so that taxpayers are willing to comply with

applicable tax rules and regulations. Tax knowledge of a taxpayer can be measured through

knowledge and understanding of rights, obligations, and responsibilities as a taxpayer. The

knowledge possessed by taxpayers about good taxation will minimize the occurrence of tax

evasion (Tresnalyani & Jati, 2018). Rodriguez-Justicia & Theilen (2018) stated that good

taxpayer knowledge can have an impact on tax compliance. In addition to knowledge, service

can also affect motivation in paying taxes.

Based on the Law of the Republic of Indonesia No. 25 of 2011 concerning public services,

service is a series of activities in terms of meeting service needs, by statutory regulations on

goods, services, or administrative services provided by the government. Yayat (2017) stated

that public service is an effort made by a group or a bureaucratic person to assist the community

to achieve a certain goal. Service quality is defined as the ability of an organization to meet or

exceed customer expectations (Parasuraman et al., 1985). From the explanation above, it can

be explained that improving the quality of public services is a very important issue. This

happens because, on the one hand, the community's demands for service quality are getting

bigger while the practice of service providers does not experience significant changes. The basis

for this research is because public knowledge about taxes is quite good. Therefore, this study

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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 9, Issue 4, April-2022

Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom

wanted to see how much influence taxpayer knowledge, service quality, and taxpayer

awareness have on motivation in paying taxes.

Figure 1. Thinking Framework

METHOD

This study used tax knowledge, service quality, and taxpayer awareness as independent

variables. In addition, the variable of motivation to pay taxes is used as the dependent variable.

Figure 1 outlines the research plan. The purpose of this research was to see how much influence

taxpayer knowledge, service quality, and taxpayer awareness have on motivation in paying

taxes. This research is located in Medan City, North Sumatra. The research period is from March

to June 2020. The data source used by the researcher is primary data. Primary data is the type

of data collected by distributing questionnaires which are measured by a Likert scale (Santoso

et al., 2018). This study distributed questionnaires directly to individual taxpayers in the city

of Medan.

The population used in this study is the individual taxpayers in the city of Medan. The sampling

of this study applied an accidental sampling technique which is a sampling technique based on

chance, meaning that anyone who coincidentally meets a researcher can be used as a sample

that fits the research criteria. (Payadnya & Jayantika, 2018), this was obtained by 40 people

based on accidental sampling, namely individual taxpayers in Medan City within 3 days. The

model in this study used multiple linear equations, where the analytical tool used was multiple

linear regression analysis which aims to examine the effect of two or more independent

variables on the dependent variable. The multiple linear regression equation models in this

study are as follows:

� = � + �1�1 + �2�2 + �3�3 + � (1)

Description

Y = Taxpayer Motivation

a = constant

X1 = Tax Knowledge

X2 = Service Quality

X3 = Taxpayer Awareness

b1 -b3 = Regression Coefficients of the

respective independent variable

e = Error

Tax Knowledge

Taxpayer Awareness

Service quality Motivation to pay taxes

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Nainggolan, S. G. V., Wahyuni, P., Gustina, I., & Rinaldi, M. (2022). Factors that can Influence the Motivation of Individual Tax Payment in Medan

City. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 9(4). 44-54.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.94.12118

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Descriptive statistics

Based on the results of the questionnaire, several things related to the characteristics contained

in the sample of this study were obtained. The results of the data tabulation stated that the

number of respondents categorized based on their age are as follow: from 20-30 years were 19

people, 10 people were 31-40 years old, 10 people were 41-50 years old and one person was

50 years old and above, the biggest average age level of the respondents is between 20 to 30

years. Based on the gender of the respondents, there were 23 men and 17 women. The

education level of the respondents was 14 people with high school education and 26 people

with undergraduate education. Furthermore, the respondents in this study worked as

employees. Based on the Taxpayer Identification Number, 30 people owned Taxpayer

Identification Number while the other 10 people don’t. Characteristics of respondents can be

seen in table 1.

Table 1. Characteristics of Respondents

Characteristics Criteria Number of people)

Age 20 – 30 years 19

31 – 40 years 10

41 – 50 years 10

> 50 years 1

Gender Man 23

Woman 17

Education High School / Equivalent 14

Undergraduate 26

Postgraduate -

Work Employee 40

Businessman -

Taxpayer Identification

Number

Registered 30

Not Registered 10

Validity and Reliability Test

Before conducting research, the questionnaire must go through an initial trial using validity and

reliability tests so that this research is accurate in solving problems. A validity test is used to

measure the validity of a questionnaire. If the correlation of each factor is positive and greater

than 0.312 (Rtable), then the factor is a strong construct. So based on the factor analysis, it can

be concluded that the instrument has good construct validity. Knowledge of taxation has 6 valid

statement items and has a value Cronbach's Alpha of 0.617, the quality of tax services has 10

valid statements and has a value of Cronbach's Alpha of 0.859, then Taxpayer Awareness has

12 valid statements and Taxpayer Motivation has 6 valid statements and has value Cronbach's

Alpha of 0.930, the test results can be seen in table 2.