Tax Knowledge and Gender: The Impact in Improving Tax Compliance of MSME Actors

The objective of the Directorate General of Taxes, a governmental entity operating within the Ministry of Finance, is to enhance tax revenue by implementing tax reforms that streamline the tax system. These reforms encompass modifications to tax rates, non-taxable income thresholds, and tax collection procedures. Despite serving as a fundamental pillar of the nation's economy, a significant number of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) exhibit non-compliance concerning their tax obligations. A research investigation was undertaken to ascertain the influence of tax knowledge, gender, and individual characteristics on the tax compliance of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the tax office of KPP Pratama Kota Tegal. The employed metadata analysis methodology involved


INTRODUCTION
Tax knowledge or understanding of accounting and tax provisions will not be effective in improving taxpayer compliance.Compliance in taxation relates to filling, reporting, and paying taxes owed correctly and on time.Accounting for tax calculations and general regulations regarding obligations and punishments for not paying taxes will lead to taxpayer compliance in paying taxes.There have been numerous undisputed reports of fraud in the tax industry recently, with the Director General of Taxes at the center of many of these incidents.The number of tax employees facing disciplinary action has risen substantially over the past five years.When employees are inspired to achieve their best, they are more likely to put in extra effort to get their jobs done on time and by companAnalyzingen and women through the lens of sex or gender allows us to distinguish between them in ways that go beyond their biological makeup.One of the fascinating aspects of studying tax compliance is the role of gender.Several studies suggest that women are more likely to pay their taxes in full out of a sense of duty or guilt than men are, whereas the latter pay their taxes in full out of a car of penalties.carn many ways, the deterioration in MSMEs' performance may be traced back to the issue mentioned above.To achieve goals and produce the desired results, a model solution is required to boost employee performance.Research in the sector shows that while production needs are holding steady, the performance of MSMEs has dropped.This study develops a model of employee performance in which the factors necessary to boost performance steadily rise over time.Tax compliance or taxpayer compliance is an important factor for increasing tax revenue, so it is necessary to intensively study the factors that affect taxpayer compliance.Thus, tax knowledge is something that needs to be a matter of attention in the self-assessment system, namely to help taxpayers carry out their tax obligations correctly.Tax compliance data up to 2022 is illustrated in the following graph: Research on the effect of tax knowledge and gender levels on tax compliance has been examined by other researchers, (Oyok, 2010)which proves that taxpayer awareness, fiscal services, and tax sanctions affect taxpayer compliance.Other researchers (Arum et al., 2012) prove that service quality, sanctions, and tax compliance costs affect compliance.
Based on the background description above, the author is interested in conducting research entitled "The Effect of Tax Knowledge and Gender on Tax Compliance of Individual Taxpayers at the Primary Tax Service Office in Tegal City".

LITERATURE REVIEW KAJIAN LITERATUR Tax Compliance
The word "obedience" can signify either submission or obedience to a doctrine or rule, according to the Indonesian General Dictionary.Also, Gibson defines obedience as "the desire to do or not to do something by established rules" (Azwar Saifudin, 2012).The Tax Law is the governing document for tax matters.Therefore, tax compliance refers to the observance by a taxpayer of rules or the provisions of Tax Law.Waluyo (Apriani et al., 2018) drew the following conclusions about the features integral to the idea of tax: 1. Taxation is imposed by legislation and regulations that are subject to enforcement.
2. The government does not have the authority to demonstrate the presence of personal contraception through tax payments.3. Taxes are collected by the state's national and local governments.4. Taxes serve the purpose of funding government spending, and any remaining surplus from income is allocated towards financing public investments. 5. Taxes can serve functions outside their budgetary role, namely in terms of regulation.

Tax Knowledge
According to (Roshidi et al., 2007), tax knowledge is essential for increasing public understanding of tax legislation, the function of taxes in national development, and the allocation of tax revenue.If taxpayers have a better grasp of taxation, they will be less likely to take illegal measures to avoid paying their fair share.According to (Surtikanti et al., 2022), the following are signs of familiarity with tax regulations: 1. Understanding self-assessment systems.
2. Understanding the current tax system.3. Tax Return Reporting.4. Taxpayer Identification Number (NPWP).Gender Gender (Sex) is an analytical concept used to identify differences between men and women from non-biological angles, namely from social, cultural, and psychological aspects (Mutmainah, 2006).According to Coate and Frey in (Normadewi, 2012)), The structural approach and the socialization method are the two most frequent ways to offer insight into gender.According to proponents of the structural approach, gender disparities exist because men and women were taught different values and norms about labor and other roles at different ages.Rewards and incentives within a career have an impact on an individual's early socialization.Men and women will respond and grow ethical and moral beliefs similarly in an identical work setting because the nature and work at hand affect behavior through reward and incentive systems.To rephrase, structural theories assume that men and women in the same field will act similarly.Kurt Lewin's theory of behaviorism served as a benchmark in this investigation as well.To better comprehend the impact of a change endeavor, (Lewin, 1951) proposed the notion of force field analysis.Using a method called "force field analysis," one can get a bird ' s-eye view of the interplay between change's driving and resisting forces.According to (Lewin, 1951), transformation involves three stages: thawing, transformation (the attempt to establish new conditions), and refreezing (the merging, creation, and maintenance of transformation).Lewin, 1951) Based on Lewin's theory, it is hoped that a process of disbursement or awareness of MSME actors will be carried out by providing knowledge about taxes in terms of female and male gender and their characteristics.After the awareness process, a change process is carried out, namely starting to form the compliance of MSME actors in paying taxes, which in the end will be able to stabilize the situation, namely the creation of tax compliance from MSME actors.

Hypothesis
Effect X1 on Y To fulfill tax obligations compliantly, Taxpayers need knowledge of tax policies/regulations. Taxpayers who are declared non-compliant are not necessarily because the Taxpayer deliberately violates existing regulations, but because of the Taxpayer's ignorance or incomprehension of a tax regulation so that the Taxpayer pays tax with an incorrect amount.The self-assessment system makes tax knowledge play a very important role for taxpayers in carrying out their tax obligations.
The results of research conducted by (Arum et al., 2012) and (Apriani et al., 2018) prove that tax knowledge affects taxpayer compliance.H1: It is suspected that there is an effect of tax knowledge on the tax compliance of individual taxpayers at the Primary Tax Service Office in Tegal City.

Effect X2 on Y
Gender is one of the interesting factors to study related to tax compliance.Several studies show the results that female taxpayers will obediently pay taxes for reasons of conscience or have feelings of guilt if they do not pay taxes by the amount they should, while male taxpayers emphasize fear of being imposed.(Pope & Jabbar, 2007) stated that gender is a micro factor outside the tax system that affects a person's tax non-compliance.Related to the level of tax compliance based on gender.
The results of (Apriani et al., 2018) research prove that gender affects individual taxpayer tax compliance, but gender and tax knowledge levels have no interaction in influencing tax compliance.H2 It is suspected that there is an effect of tax knowledge on the tax compliance of individual taxpayers at the Primary Tax Service Office in Tegal City.

Effect on X1 and X2 on Y
To fulfill tax obligations compliantly, Taxpayers need knowledge of tax policies/regulations. Taxpayers who are declared non-compliant are not necessarily because the Taxpayer deliberately violates existing regulations, but because of the Taxpayer's ignorance or incomprehension of a tax regulation so that the Taxpayer pays tax with an incorrect amount.
The self-assessment system makes tax knowledge play a very important role for taxpayers in carrying out their tax obligations.
H4 It is suspected that there is an effect of tax knowledge, gender, and individual characteristics together on the tax compliance of individual taxpayers at the Primary Tax Service Office in Tegal City.The sample methodology employed in this study is incidental sampling.Incidental sampling is a sampling approach that relies on chance encounters with individuals who may be regarded as adequate sources of data by the researcher (Sugiyono, 2011).

Research design
This research is quantitative research conducted with surveys and questionnaires distributed to respondents.The results of filling out the questionnaire will then be calculated with SPSS software.This research was conducted within six months at KPP Pratama Kota Tegal.

Research Limits
This study was conducted only on individual taxpayer MSMEs with three independent variables to measure their effect on tax compliance.

Measurement
Data Collection in this research through questionnaire and observation.The collected data is then analyzed using multiple linear regression analysis.

RESULT
The validity of an instrument is established when it accurately measures the intended construct or effectively captures the precise about to of variables under investigation.The number of test questions for each variable, namely Tax Knowledge, Gender, Individual ChaCharCharacteristicsx Compliance, was determined to be 8 questions.This determination was made after administering the instrument to a sample of 30 respondents, with a significance level of 0.05 and a sample size of n = 30.The resulting reliability coefficient (rtasrtastablend to be 0.361.Based on the analysis results, the research instrument was deemed valid using the product moment correlation formula.
A reliability test is conducted to assess the degree of precision, consistency, or dependability exhibited by a measuring device.Reliability pertains to the extent to which a research instrument consistently yields reliable measurement outcomes for a given variable across multiple instances of assessment.Based on the assessment of the reliability of the variables Tax Knowledge, Gender, Individual Characteristics, and Tax Compliance, it is observed that their reliability values surpass the threshold of 0.60.This indicates that these variables can be considered reliable instruments.
The table presented below displays the statistics about the respondents' identity definition, specifically categorized by gender and age: Based on Table 2 above, most respondents in this study were aged between 41 -50 years, namely 57 respondents or 57%.Those aged 31-40 were 28 respondents or 28%.Those over 51 years old were 13 respondents or 13%.And those aged 21-30 as many as 2 respondents or 2%.Based on the calculation results of multiple regression analysis using the SPSS for Windows computing program, a regression equation is obtained, namely: Ŷ = 6,459 + 0,633 X1 + 1,545 X2 + e Table 3.

Regression Equation Results
Source: Data processed with SPSS ( 2023) The statistical test t shows how far the influence of one independent variable has on the dependent variable by assuming the other independent variable is constant.
Based on the table above, it can be interpreted that: 1. Tax knowledge affects the tax compliance of individual taxpayers.From the calculation of the significance test of individual parameters using SPSS, a significance value is 0.000 < 0.05 is obtained so that it can be concluded that tax knowledge has a significant effect on the tax compliance of individual taxpayers, thus the second hypothesis, namely "It is suspected that there is an effect of tax knowledge on the tax compliance of individual taxpayers at the Tegal City Primary Tax Service Office" can be accepted.
2. Gender affects the tax compliance of individual taxpayers.From the calculation of the significance test of Individual parameters using SPSS, a significance value is 0.007 < 0.05 is obtained so that it can be concluded that gender has a significant effect on individual taxpayer tax compliance, the third hypothesis, namely "It is suspected that there is a gender influence on individual taxpayer tax compliance at the Tegal City Primary Tax Service Office" can be accepted.To test the simultaneous effect of the F test is used with the following results: Table 4

. Simultaneous Test Results
Source: Data processed with SPSS (2023) It can be concluded that there is a gender influence on the tax compliance of individual taxpayers at the Tegal City Primary Tax Service Office because the F test yielded a significance value of 0.000 0.05, which meant that Ho was rejected and Ha was accepted.This means that the first hypothesis, "It is suspected that there is a gender influence on the tax compliance of individual taxpayers at the Tegal City Primary Tax Service Office," can be accepted.The coefficient of determination is a statistical measure of the extent to which the model accounts for observed differences in the dependent variable.Between zero and one, R2 is a number.Finding the independent variable's influence on the dependent variable is the goal of computing the coefficient of determination.While a high R2 number is preferable, a low R2 value is not necessarily indicative of a poor regression model.

Coefficient of Determination Test Results
Source: Data processed with SPSS ( 2023) Based on the results of the study, the magnitude of the influence of the application of the Theory of planned behavior and moral obligations together on the non-compliance behavior of individual taxpayers amounted to 42.4%, and the rest, which was 57.6%, influenced by other factors that were not studied.

DISCUSSION
The results of this study prove that tax knowledge affects the tax compliance of individual taxpayers.This can be proven from the results of the calculation of the significance test of Individual parameters using SPSS.To fulfill tax obligations obediently, Taxpayers need knowledge of tax policies/regulations. Taxpayers who are declared non-compliant are not necessarily because the Taxpayer deliberately violates existing regulations, but because of the Taxpayer's ignorance or incomprehension of a tax regulation so that the Taxpayer pays tax with an incorrect amount.The self-assessment system makes tax knowledge play a very important role for taxpayers in carrying out their tax obligations.The results of this study are in accordance or line with the results of research conducted by Harjanti Puspa Arum and Zulaikha (2012) and Debianita and Verani Carolina (2013) proving that tax knowledge affects taxpayer compliance.
The results of this study prove that gender affects the tax compliance of individual taxpayers.This can be proven from the results of the calculation of the significance test of Individual parameters using SPSS.The results of this study are in accordance or line with the results of research conducted by Debianita and Verani Carolina which proved that gender affects WPOP tax compliance, but gender and tax knowledge levels have no interaction in influencing WPOP tax compliance.

CONCLUSION
Results from a subset of tests employing the t-test indicate that individual taxpayers' tax compliance is significantly influenced by their level of tax knowledge (p0.000, significance threshold = 0.05).Results from a t-test with a 5% significance threshold showed a gender effect on tax compliance for individuals of 0.007, indicating a significant relationship between gender and tax compliance.
According to the F test's calculated significance value of 0.000 0.05, the Tax Knowledge and gender of individual taxpayers at Tegal City's Primary Tax Service Office are significantly related to their Tax Compliance.
The coefficient of determination analysis shows that 51.4% of the outcome can be attributed to the contribution.At 51.4%, the difference in Tax Knowledge between women and men can be interpreted as a contributor to Tax Compliance, while the remaining 48.6% is determined by other factors.

SUGGESTION
After conducting the research, analyzing the data, and drawing inferences from the research findings, the authors present several recommendations for further research.The study's findings suggest that the Directorate General of Taxes should work with relevant academic institutions to increase the public's exposure to taxation and its complexities.The Directorate General of Taxes (DJP) can have some help with its outreach efforts if it can get tax centers set up in Indonesian colleges.It is suggested that future studies on the same topic employ a larger sample size and investigate additional variables.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Graph of Tax Revenue 2017 -2021 Based on the graph above, we can see that tax revenue tends to increase from 2017 to 2021, but then decreases in 2022.Tax revenue should not fall to get maximum national income.Research on the effect of tax knowledge and gender levels on tax compliance has been examined by other researchers,(Oyok, 2010)which proves that taxpayer awareness, fiscal services, and tax sanctions affect taxpayer compliance.Other researchers(Arum et al., 2012) prove that service quality, sanctions, and tax compliance costs affect compliance.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Lewin a State of The Art (Source:Lewin, 1951) Based on Lewin's theory, it is hoped that a process of disbursement or awareness of MSME actors will be carried out by providing knowledge about taxes in terms of female and male gender and their characteristics.After the awareness process, a change process is carried out, namely starting to form the compliance of MSME actors in paying taxes, which in the end will be able to stabilize the situation, namely the creation of tax compliance from MSME actors.Hypothesis

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Frame of Mind

Table 1 . Description of respondents by gender
Based on Table1above, it is known that male respondents are 50 respondents or 50% and women are 50 respondents or 50%.While based on age, respondents in this study are classified as follows: