Every year, the last week of February is celebrated as ‘Tax Week’. During Tax Week, a series of activities are organised to emphasise the importance of tax for the realisation of public services, inform all segments of society about tax, and create tax awareness. Every year, Tax Week is celebrated with a slogan. This year's slogan is: ‘Our future is safe with our taxes’. Within the scope of the 35th Tax Week, Bursa Tax Office President Hüseyin EROL, Procedural Manager Nagihan Ekim and Revenue Specialist İsmail TOK provided information at the event on ‘Digitalisation and Career Professions in Tax Offices’ hosted by Bursa Uludağ University Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Department of Finance and Uludağ Finance Society. The opening speeches of the event were made by Prof. Dr Ufuk Selen, Head of the Department of Finance, Prof. Dr Kadir Yasin Eryiğit, Dean of our Faculty, and Hüseyin EROL, Head of Bursa Tax Office, and the event continued with presentations. In his speech at the event, Prof. Dr. Ufuk Selen, Head of the Department of Finance, said: ‘Tax is described as the only phenomenon in life as real as death.

The elements of compulsion and gratuitousness in the tax definition make tax unpleasant. In recent years, we have witnessed policies developed through conceptualisations such as ‘tax compliance’ and ‘voluntary tax compliance’ to overcome this negative perception of society towards taxation. The element of coercion is the most fundamental motivation for tax compliance. However, excessive or incomplete use of the sanctioning power brought about by coercion may lead to different resistances against taxation in the taxation process. It is possible to increase voluntary tax compliance up to a certain point with emotion-based discourses such as ‘Our future is safe with our taxes’. However, in this way, tax compliance remains limited to the emotional sympathy addressed. The most important way to increase tax compliance is to make individuals feel their tax is reflected as welfare. The only way to make them feel this is to arouse the perception that public services are the general equivalent of taxes. Society will develop a positive attitude towards tax if this perception is aroused. Another way to increase tax compliance is to strengthen taxation processes with technological infrastructure. The digitalisation of tax administration significantly contributes to facilitating taxation processes and increasing audit efficiency.’  Nagihan Ekim, Procedural Manager, presented the stages of digitalisation in tax offices. Revenue Specialist İsmail TOK gave information about the career professions our faculty students can be employed in the Revenue Administration. The event was finalised by answering the questions of the participating students.