Purpose

This paper aims to enhance the understanding of tax non-compliance behaviour of owner-managers of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Yemen. Drawing on the behavioural perspective and not on the Sharia per se, this study investigated the perspectives of Muslims towards government’s right to impose tax, summarised in three categories: forbidden, permissible and permissible under certain conditions.

Design/methodology/approach

This study was conducted using a self-administered survey to collect the required data from a sample of 500 SMEs in Yemen. Non-compliance is measured in terms of a single hypothetical tax scenario covering four types of tax situations. Yet, Muslims’ perspective towards the government’s right to impose tax was measured using the three perspectives stated above.

Findings

As the major finding, Muslims’ perspective towards taxation has a significant influence on their likely tax compliance behaviour. Specifically, the taxpayers who believed that tax is totally permissible (i.e. the government has the right to impose tax) were more compliant than those who believed that tax is totally forbidden. Furthermore, taxpayers’ non-compliance decisions are statistically related to tax rate and penalties.

Practical implications

The findings could serve as a useful input for taxation policy and strategy in Yemen. It is recommended that government should stress the importance of paying tax as a citizen’s obligation and also emphasise the religious legality of taxation, as it is used for public purposes.

Originality/value

This study differs from the existing literature in that its empirical investigation scrutinises the effect of citizens’ perspectives towards taxation on their non-compliance behaviour within the Islamic religion itself, particularly, in a typical Muslim community such as Yemen. The study is pioneer in adopting the views of different scholars on the government’s right to collect taxes based on three religious views (forbidden, permissible and permissible under certain conditions), which were used for measurement.

中文翻译：

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宗教观点会影响税收违规吗？来自也门的证据

目的

本文旨在加深对也门中小型企业（SME）所有者-经理的税收违规行为的了解。该研究基于行为观点而非伊斯兰教法本身，研究了穆斯林对政府征收税权的观点，归纳为三类：在某些条件下被禁止，允许和允许。

设计/方法/方法

这项研究是使用自我管理的调查进行的，目的是从也门的500家中小型企业样本中收集所需数据。违规情况是根据涵盖四种类型的税收情况的单一假设税收情景进行衡量的。然而，穆斯林对政府征收税权的观点是通过上述三种观点来衡量的。

发现

作为主要发现，穆斯林对税收的看法对其可能的税收合规行为具有重大影响。具体来说，那些认为税收是完全可以允许的（即政府有权征收税款）的纳税人比那些认为税收是完全禁止的纳税人更加合规。此外，纳税人的违规决定在统计上与税率和罚款有关。

实际影响

这些发现可以为也门的税收政策和战略提供有用的信息。建议政府应强调纳税是公民义务的重要性，并且还应强调税收的宗教合法性，因为这是用于公共目的的。

创意/价值

这项研究与现有文献的不同之处在于，它的实证研究仔细研究了公民对伊斯兰教义本身，特别是在也门这样的典型穆斯林社区中，对不遵从行为征税的看法所产生的影响。该研究是先行采纳不同学者关于政府根据三种宗教观点（在一定条件下被禁止，可允许和可允许）征收税款的观点进行衡量的观点。