Empirical Study to Find Factors Influencing e-Filing Adoption in India

During assessment year 2004-2005, Income Tax Department of Government of India has shifted to new paradigm by introducing an emerging e-government service - e-filling (online tax filing). This government-to-citizens (G2C) service has significant benefits for both- government as well as for taxpayers in terms of cost effective, convenient, time saving, accuracy, fast, secure, more productive and efficient. While several benefits incurred in e-filing, all the taxpayers of country many not be able to realize these benefits due to several factors. A large number of taxpayers still prefer pen and paper based tax filing or take help of intermediaries (e.g. tax consultant) in order to file return. In developing country like India, internet and technology is still out of reach of many citizens and people are not technologically matured to utilize full potentiality of internet and technology. The purpose of this study is to investigate the underlying factors that influence citizens' intensions to adopt e-filing in the Indian context. Quantitative approach is used in this study to investigate adoption factors and total 349 questionnaires were received and 294 were found valid to analyze. Participants in the survey were Indian citizens who file their taxes to Indian authorities. The proposed e-filing integrated adoption model is built on prior theories - Technology adoption model (TAM), Diffusion of Innovation (DOI), Perceived characteristics of innovating (PCI), Web trust theory and perceived risk, Web service quality. The result of the analysis showed that perceive usefulness (PU), perceived ease-of-use (PEOU), compatibility, service quality, trust of the internet, trust of the government, result demonstrability, service quality and social influence are found to be significant predictors of citizens' intention to use e-filing. This study has established a comprehensive research model integrating major theories and dimensions of adoption. The study may assist government or other concern authorities to understand citizens' behavior and their perceptions towards E-fling system and other e-government services too. The study suggests that upgrading e-filing system services will improve taxpayers' compliance that will improve the intention of taxpayers positively to use it. Future research might employ a larger sample to generalize to the whole country. Furthermore, qualitative research like interview with selected taxpayers can cater other factors related to efficiency and effectiveness of e-filing.