The Resistance Of Business Actors as Taxpayers Towards Tax Regulations

This study aims to observe and understand the resistance behavior shown by business actors with the status of Taxable Entrepreneurs who have more than one type of business in responding to changes in VAT (Value Added Tax) regulations. By using a phenomenological approach with a qualitative method. Data was collected through interviews, observations and field documentation. The number of informants in this study consists of four informants who located in East Nusa Tenggara Province. Taxable Entrepreneurs (PKP) related to the 10% VAT rate which makes the selling value of goods higher than non-PKP (non-taxable Entrepreneurs), so it is necessary to increase the selling price of their products or being forced to sell without VAT and the tarif is considered not in favor to the entrepreneurs with PKP status. Unfavorable business conditions also make entrepreneurs have to take strategies to maintain their business, including splitting or dividing the business entity into several parts, selling without VAT, and doing double bookkeeping. The condition of people’s purchasing power shows the opposite result to the seller’s obligation to collect VAT, especially that as of April 2022 the VAT rate has increased from 10% to 11%. The response to VAT can also be seen from two behavioral perspectives, where the type of businesses that partnering with government are more bound to cause entrepreneurs to tend to comply with taxation but there are still initiatives to find loopholes, meanwhile for types of businesses that are not directly related to the government, tax avoidance is always sought on the grounds that the supervision is not as strict as that of businesses partnering with BUMN (State-Owned Entreprises). This behavior is further strengthened by self-justification carried out on the basis of entrepreneurs in the environment around the informants who also doing the same thing. This study provides an accurate picture of the response of taxpayers in rural areas of Indonesia who tax avoidance with cultural habits influenced by the surrounding community. The number of research informants and variables provides an overview of the various perspectives on the limitations of this study