The Effect of Tax Compliance Costs on MSME Taxpayer Compliance: Evidence from Sukoharjo Regency (Jurnal Ilmiah AccUsi)

Summary

• Between 2023 and 2025, registered MSME taxpayers in Sukoharjo Regency rose by 56%, while the share filing tax returns fell from 99% to 49%.p.1
• Final income tax revenue collected by the Sukoharjo Primary Tax Office decreased from IDR 146.5 billion in 2024 to IDR 125.9 billion in 2025.p.2
• Active MSME taxpayers increased from 15,258 in 2023 to 23,789 in 2025, while the payment ratio declined from 22.6% to 12.3%.p.2
• A G*Power 3.1 analysis indicated a required minimum of 92 respondents, and the study gathered data from 100 valid questionnaires across 12 subdistricts.p.5
• Sole proprietorships made up 86% of the survey respondents, and 83% reported an annual business turnover of up to IDR 500 million.p.8
• The structural equation model explained 27.04% of the variance in taxpayer compliance (R² = 0.2704).p.10

Key insights

1. PLS-SEM analysis identified a statistically significant positive association between perceived compliance costs and MSME taxpayer compliance (β = 0.2296; p = 0.0095; f² = 0.056).p.1
2. In 2025, the Sukoharjo Primary Tax Office achieved 97.11% of its total revenue target.p.2
3. The operational framework categorizes monetary outlays as explicit costs and spent time as implicit costs, while treating stress and anxiety as psychological costs.p.4
4. On a 1 to 6 scale, respondents reported low average perceived monetary costs (1.3600) and time costs (1.7600), but higher psychological pressure (3.0000).p.9
5. Among the control variables, legal form (β = 0.7361; p = 0.0005) and length of tax registration (β = 0.2469; p = 0.0156) showed significant positive associations with tax compliance.p.10
6. Business location (β = -0.0177; p = 0.9336) and turnover group (β = 0.0067; p = 0.9432) demonstrated no statistically significant link with compliance levels.p.10