E-Government Services Online: An Exploratory Study on Tax E-Filing in Malaysia

E-filing is a new service launched in the year 2005 by the Malaysian Inland Revenue Board. This is in line with the government’s vision to leverage on the Internet technology in extending its services to the citizens and to further embrace the cutting-edge technology in the information age. Via this system, the citizens or taxpayers are able to complete an electronic application form and the necessary payment details with a few keystrokes and hence complete their revenue declaration within minutes. The purpose of e-filing service is to encourage every taxpayer to submit their income tax returns through an online system, thus reducing the manual paper-based submission method. This paper examines taxpayers’ intention to use the e-filing system in Malaysia. The paper analyses the factors that contribute towards adoption of such system in Malaysia based on three models, namely, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) and Technology Readiness Index (TRI). Our findings suggest that taxpayers have intention to use the e-filing systems as they perceive that tax submission method via internet is more convenient than submission by post or by hand and that perceived readiness towards using this technology is paramount to their belief for using e-filing systems.