Tax Morale

Unlocking what drives tax morale – the intrinsic willingness to pay tax – can greatly assist governments in the design of tax policies and their administration, particularly in developing countries where compliance rates are low. This report builds on previous OECD research to identify some of the key socio-economic and institutional drivers of tax morale across developing countries, and seeks to test for evidence of the social contract by examining the impact of public services on tax morale. It also uses new data on tax certainty as an entry point to explore tax morale in businesses, where existing research is very limited. Finally, the report identifies a range of factors related to the tax system that may affect business decision making, how they vary across regions, and suggests some areas for future research. Overall, the report provides a range of suggestions for further work, and how tax morale considerations can be integrated into holistic tax compliance strategies.

The book will be of considerable assistance to students and other researchers working in the area of compliance behaviour, or more generally, in the area of designing empirical studies. Margaret McKerchar, The British Accounting Review Torgler s book is a valuable contribution to the tax field, especially as it pioneers research into tax morale that is in its infancy and helps redress the US domination of the tax-compliance literature. It places econometric analysis where it rightly belongs as the supporting act, not the main feature! and takes a holistic approach in attempting to explain the complex area of human behaviour that tax compliance involves, whatever the country. Jeff Pope, Agenda Benno Torgler has written an exciting and important book. His careful and imaginative use of survey and experimental data explores important behavioral and institutional dimensions of tax policy and administration that have been too long neglected. The book provides a thorough exposition of what we now know about these issues as well as a rich menu of suggestions about how to do empirical research on the relation between citizens and states and how to build social capital through rethinking how states tax their citizens. Richard M. Bird, University of Toronto, Canada The question of why citizens pay their taxes has attracted increased attention in the tax compliance literature of late. In this book, Benno Torgler considers the evidence that suggests that enforcement efforts cannot fully explain the high degree of tax compliance within society. To attempt to resolve this puzzle, numerous researchers have argued that citizens attitudes towards paying taxes (defined as tax morale) help to explain the high degree of compliance. Yet most have treated tax morale itself as a black box, failing to discuss the issues influencing it. This unique volume provides important new insights into the factors that shape the emergence and maintenance of citizens willingness to cooperate with tax legislations in different societies. Distinctive in its examination of citizen tax morale and tax compliance, this book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and students concerned with economics, political science, sociology, social psychology and accounting. It will also appeal to policymakers and practitioners.

Widespread voluntary tax compliance plays a significant role in countries’ efforts to raise the revenues necessary to achieve Sustainable Development Goals. As part of this process, governments are increasingly reaching out to taxpayers – current and future – to teach, communicate and assist them in order to foster a “culture of compliance” based on rights and responsibilities, in which citizens see paying taxes as an integral aspect of their relationship with their government.

Unlocking what drives tax morale - the intrinsic willingness to pay tax - can greatly assist governments in the design of tax policies and their administration, particularly in developing countries where compliance rates are low. This report builds on previous OECD research to identify some of the key socio-economic and institutional drivers of tax morale across developing countries, and seeks to test for evidence of the social contract by examining the impact of public services on tax morale. It also uses new data on tax certainty as an entry point to explore tax morale in businesses, where existing research is very limited. Finally, the report identifies a range of factors related to the tax system that may affect business decision making, how they vary across regions, and suggests some areas for future research. Overall, the report provides a range of suggestions for further work, and how tax morale considerations can be integrated into holistic tax compliance strategies.

Why do people evade paying taxes? This is the central question addressed in this volume by Robert McGee and a multidisciplinary group of contributors from around the world. Applying insights from economics, public finance, political science, law, philosophy, theology and sociology, the authors consider the complex motivations for not paying taxes and the conditions under which this behavior might be rationalized. Applying theoretical approaches as well as empirical research, The Ethics of Tax Evasion considers three general arguments for tax evasion: (1) in cases where the government is corrupt or engaged in human rights abuses; (2) where citizens claim inability to pay, unfairness in the tax system, paying for things that do not benefit the taxpayer, excessively high tax rates, or where taxes are used to support an unpopular war; and (3) through philosophical, moral, or religious opposition. The authors further explore these issues by asking whether attitudes toward tax evasion differ by country or other demographic variables such as gender, age, ethnicity, income level, marital status, education or religion. The result is a multi-faceted analysis of tax evasion in cultural and institutional context, and, more generally, a study in ethical dilemmas and rational decision making.

Volume 31 of Advances in Taxation includes studies from expert contributors, exploring topics such as: firms’ domestic and foreign effective tax rates; tax avoidance; and tax compliance. A study reviews prior literature on tax increment financing, an economic development tool frequently used by U.S. local governments.

Over the last several decades, there has been a growing interest in theoretical, empirical, and experimental work on all aspects of tax compliance and tax evasion. The essays in this volume summarize the existing state of knowledge of tax compliance and tax evasion, present new thinking about this issue, and analyze the empirical relevance of these new perspectives. The original essays in this volume represent an attempt to provide a framework on compliance that moves beyond the economics-of-crime perspective, one that provides a more complete understanding of individual (and group) decisions, and one that is more consistent with empirical evidence. It is the insights of behavioural economics that provide much of the bases for these essays and the main theme running through this book is that the basic model of individual choice must be expanded, by introducing some aspects of behaviour or motivation considered explicitly by other social sciences.

This volume highlights current research and developments on organizations and (their) performance against the background of ubiquitous complexity. It investigates some of the challenges and trends dominating the complex world of nowadays and the ways organizations are dealing with them in their continuous search for performance. The papers in the volume cover a series of hot and/or emerging topics (i.e. sustainable development, corporate social responsibility, green marketing, digital revolution, social media, global trade, intangible assets, economic intelligence and innovation). Built on an interdisciplinary perspective and a multi-level approach―global (trade, power, sustainable development), regional (EU, BRICS), national (country-based systems, cultures, policies, practices), industry (airlines, pharma, luxury, retailing, banking, tourism), local (communities, destinations), and organization (entrepreneurship, MNEs, public organizations: national and local)―the volume uniquely addresses issues of high interest for researchers, practitioners and policymakers.

Traditional models of tax evasion cannot explain why most people comply with their taxes. It has been proposed that taxpayers may have an intrinsic motivation (or willingness) to comply with taxes - Tax Morale. Empirical studies found that trusting government, upholding religious beliefs, and supporting democratic regimes, increase individual Tax Morale. Based on those results and drawing from related literature in Political Science, this study tests the role of trusting government institutions delivering public goods to taxpayers, ideological beliefs, individual support for political regimes, and upholding post-materialist values, on Tax Morale. Results for individuals living in democratic countries show a positive relationship between trust in government institutions and upholding democratic values on Tax Morale; a negative relationship between upholding ideological (conservative) beliefs and Tax Morale, and no relationship between upholding post-materialist values and Tax Morale. Results for individuals living under non-democratic regimes differ in some respects; whereas support for democracy is related with higher Tax Morale, other results - trust in government and ideological beliefs - differ from theoretical expectations. Overall, higher trust in government increases willingness to comply with taxes, and support for democracy elicits higher Tax Morale.