Compliance on green tax amongst small medium enterprise owners in the eThekwini district

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore how green tax compliance is viewed amongst SME business owners and to understand what strategies need to be in place to strengthen the level of compliance. A qualitative research methodology was utilised. Two samples were recruited to participate in this study: Sample 1 included 12 SME business owners, and Sample 2 included 8 tax practitioners. All of the participants were from the eThekwini district. Semi-structured interviews and telephonic interviews were used to collect data from both samples. Data was collected until data saturation was reached. In total, twelve SME business owners and eight tax practitioners were interviewed. The data collected was analysed through the use of thematic analysis, which enabled similar patterns and themes in the data to be pooled together. This gave rise to 5 main themes and 13 related sub-themes. It was found that SME business owners had a positive attitude towards green tax compliance, as they were highly concerned about the sustainability and protection of the environment. There were various factors that hindered green tax compliance by SMEs. These included increased administrative procedures and costs that businesses needed to incur, lack of adoption of green practices in manufacturing processes, incurrence of high costs to comply with this tax, whilst the major finding was the lack of awareness regarding this tax. The study also concluded that business owners were contributing to environmental degradation as they were unaware of the level of damage that their manufacturing processes were causing. It was further established that the government needs to provide adequate information to the public and SMEs regarding the green tax policy. The need for transparency from the government was seen as an important measure to encourage compliance as there is a lack of trust between SMEs and the government. It was also concluded that there is a need for seminars, workshops, and media broadcasts to educate SME owners about the calculation and contribution of green tax policy. There was conclusive evidence for the need for additional, detailed information to be provided to SMEs about the green tax policy in order to encourage green tax compliance to promote environmental sustainability. This study makes a valuable contribution in that it seeks the well- being of local communities and endeavours to preserve the earth by fostering compliance with green taxes.