Zakat compliance behaviour : a case of zakat on employment income in IIUM

Abstract

Zakat is an integral Islamic tool prescribed by Allah to the people in order to strike a balance in the socio-economic environment of a country. Zakat on employment income is one crucial component of zakat and in a Malaysian context, it represents the greatest amount of zakat collection from year to year. Specifically, Lembaga Zakat Selangor (LZS) has reported that the collection of zakat on employment income has increased steadily from year 1994 to 2011. However, past studies have shown that the compliance level of zakat on employment income is still low and it indicates that there are a great number of eligible zakat payers who do not actually pay out their zakat. This study aims to survey the factors that may influence the intention of zak?t compliance (IZC) among the staffs of the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) in Gombak campus by using the determinants of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) which are attitude toward behaviour (ATB), subjective norms (SBN) and perceived behavioural control (PBC). Since the relationship between the zakat payers and zak?t authority is based on mutual exchange of trust as promulgated by the Social Exchange Theory (SET), hence this study dichotomises the ATB into attitude toward zakat compliance (AZC) and attitude toward zakat authority (AZA). This study hypothesises that AZC, AZA, SBN and PBC have significant positive influences on the IZC. The findings of this study show that only AZC and AZA have significant positive influence on the IZC while SBN and PBC have positive and negative relationship respectively with the IZC but not significant. This study contributes to the enrichment of the literature in the intention of zak?t compliance and also to the betterment of the current administration of zakat collection and distribution by the zakat authority.