Views Toward Tax Evasion: A Comparative Study of Moldova and Romania

Robert McGee

The IUP Journal of Public Finance, 2009, vol. VII, issue 3 & 4, 7-24

Abstract: There was a two-fold purpose in writing this paper. The first purpose was to discover how the populations of Moldova and Romania view tax evasion and whether opinions vary based on demographics. The second purpose, which may be more interesting from a sociological and political perspective, was whether opinions differ between countries. What is now Moldova was a part of Romania before the Soviets took it over and included it into the Soviet Union. The paper analyzes whether, after two generations of Soviet rule, attitude towards tax evasion in Moldova had become different from that in Romania. The study found that overall Romanians are more opposed to tax evasion than the Moldovans. The study found that certain demographics made a difference while other demographic factors did not, which has implications for the public finance literature in general. Gender did not make a significant difference in attitude towards tax evasion in either country; Romanians become more opposed to tax evasion as they get older, but Moldovans in the age group of 30-49 are more opposed to tax evasion than the younger and older age groups; the most educated people of Moldova are more opposed to tax evasion than the other two groups, but the middle education group in Romania is less opposed to tax evasion than the lower and upper education group; and married people oppose tax evasion more than the single people do in both the countries. Although the research is limited to Moldova and Romania, one could extrapolate that attitudes in former Soviet Republics might closely mirror those of Moldova and attitudes of former Soviet Bloc countries might closely mirror those of Romania, although any such conclusion must be tentative and subject to further research. This is the first study of its kind that has been done to compare the attitude towards tax evasion in Moldova and Romania.

Date: 2009
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:icf:icfjpf:v:07:y:2009:i:3:p:7-24

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