A Critical Review of Tax Audit Quality Factors: A Research Synthesis

The quality of tax audits plays a critical role in ensuring the transparency, accuracy, and integrity of the taxation system, which in turn contributes to public confidence and higher tax compliance. In an increasingly complex and dynamic business world, understanding the factors that affect the quality of tax audits is becoming increasingly important. Therefore, this study aims to systematically review the existing literature to identify and analyze the factors. The motivation of this study is to fill the knowledge gap and provide a comprehensive guide for researchers and practitioners in the field of taxation. Data sources are obtained from academic journals by identifying the main themes and patterns that encompass from around the world, countries in Southeast Asia, and narrow down to Malaysian studies. The categorization of tax audit quality studies into these three groups allows for the identification of variations in the variables and research techniques used, as well as the comprehension of the cultural and regional context for the audit quality study issue. The results of the study show that there are several main factors that affect the quality of tax audits, including auditor skills, knowledge, experience, information technology (IT), job satisfaction and time. The study also found that the interaction between these factors can strengthen or weaken the quality of tax audits. In conclusion, this study provides an in-depth view of the factors that affect the quality of tax audits and underlines the importance of a holistic approach in dealing with this issue. The findings of this study can help tax authorities, audit firms, and policy makers especially to Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia (IRBM) in devising more effective strategies to improve the quality of tax audits.