What Shapes Attitudes Toward Paying Taxes? Evidence from Multicultural European Countries

Benno Torgler () and Friedrich Schneider ()
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Benno Torgler: Queensland University of Technology

No 2117, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Considerable evidence suggests that enforcement efforts cannot fully explain the high degree of tax compliance. To resolve this puzzle of tax compliance several researchers have argued that citizens’ attitudes toward paying taxes defined as tax morale helps to explain the high degree of tax compliance. However, most studies have treated tax morale as a black box without discussing which factors shape it. Additionally, the tax compliance literature provides little empirical research that investigates attitudes toward paying taxes in Europe. Thus, this paper is unique in its examination of citizen tax morale within three multicultural European countries, Switzerland, Belgium and Spain, a choice that allows far more detailed examination of the impact of culture and institutions using datasets from the World Values Survey and the European Values Survey.

Keywords: culture; tax evasion; tax compliance; tax morale (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H26 H73 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2006-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec and nep-pbe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (23)

Published - published in: Social Science Quarterly, 88(2) 2007, 443–470

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Related works:
Journal Article: What Shapes Attitudes Toward Paying Taxes? Evidence from Multicultural European Countries* (2007)
Working Paper: What Shapes Attitudes Toward Paying Taxes? Evidence from Multicultural European Countries (2006)
Working Paper: What shapes attitudes toward paying taxes? Evidence from multicultural european countries (2006)
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