Hallmarks of tax avoidance and tax evasion: a Malaysian perspective / Ahmad Syaiful Razli

Tax is one important element in the Government of Malaysia's revenue. Each year,
tax contributes to almost 80% of the Malaysian government's revenue. In order to
have an efficient tax collection, the authorities need to ensure an acceptable level of
tax compliance among the taxpayers. When discussing about tax compliance, noncompliance
is an inevitable aspect. Compliance relates to the behavior of taxpayers,
structure of the legal system that comprises of tax elements, the economic situation
of the country and government policy on taxation. Taxpayers might put efforts to
mitigate the risk or burden to pay taxes. Therefore, they might use legal and illegal
ways to achieve their goal. Legal methods in reducing the amount of tax is called tax
avoidance while tax evasion is illegal mean to avoid paying taxes.