Tax Education and the Attitude of University Students Towards Tax Consciousness: The Case of University of Externado (Colombia)

Abstract

Many studies have been conducted on the effect of tax education on tax consciousness, however, no study that reveals such an effect has been conducted in Latin America. In this context, we aimed to analyze whether there is a significant difference between the attitudes towards tax consciousness of students who took tax courses and those who did not take tax courses at the University of Externado in Colombia. The data regarding 538 surveys were taken into account for analysis and testing. A 5-point Likert scale was used for the attitude items in the survey. It was observed that the data on attitude items did not show a normal distribution. Therefore, non-parametric tests were used for the data subject to our survey. In this context, the relationship between the demographic data (gender, marital status, work status) and the attitude items were analyzed through Mann Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis H tests. The test results of our study for gender and marital status showed that female students compared to males and married students compared to single and engaged students showed more supportive attitudes towards consciousness. Additionally, the students who define their own tax consciousness level as high revealed more supportive attitudes towards tax education. As the results of our analysis revealed that there is not much difference among the attitudes of students who received tax courses and those who did not receive tax courses, it would be beneficial for comparability to carry out such a study in universities in other countries located in Latin America.