TAX PLANNING BEHAVIOUR AMONG INDIVIDUAL TAXPAYERS : THE ROLE OF FINANCIAL LITERACY AND DIGITAL TAX SERVICES

Tax planning is a central component of household financial decision-making, yet individual taxpayers frequently under-utilise legitimate tax-saving instruments because of limited financial knowledge and low comfort with technology-enabled tax services. This paper examines how financial literacy and the adoption of digital tax services jointly shape tax planning behaviour among individual taxpayers. Building on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991) and the Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989), a conceptual framework is developed in which financial literacy and digital tax service usage act as antecedents of taxpayers' attitude toward tax planning, which in turn drives actual tax planning behaviour, with perceived risk and trust proposed as moderating factors. A structured review of recent Scopus- and peer-reviewed literature (2013–2026) on financial literacy, tax literacy, e-filing adoption and tax compliance is synthesised to derive six research hypotheses and a quantitative, questionnaire-based research design suitable for a cross-sectional survey of salaried and self-employed individual taxpayers.