In 2018, a joint report of the World Bank Governance Global Practice and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Centre for Tax Policy and Administration illustrated the serious threat facing the global community from increasingly complex forms of economic crime. Critically, in documenting such crime, the report confirmed that “while viewed as distinct crimes, tax crime and corruption are often intrinsically linked.” Although clearly acknowledging the intimate relationships between fraudulent and corrupt practices in taxation, the study did not delve deeply into these interconnections. The report used the word “corruption” but its analysis adopted the narrower conception of “bribery,” in this context meaning a payment to a government official to evade taxes. Thus, the study failed to explore the complexity of the linkages between tax crimes and corruption. This article argues that such a limited perspective may distort justice by creating a false narrative and disregarding how other forms of pervasive corrupt practices adversely affect tax crime enforcement. To facilitate a deeper understanding of how corruption may undermine strategies to counter tax crimes, society must embrace a conception of corruption that extends beyond the notion of bribery. Such corruption must be recognized as a pervasive social problem and a multifaceted criminal phenomenon.This article undertakes the challenge of identifying and documenting interconnections between tax crimes and corrupt practices beyond simple bribery. Not only does this mission require a more comprehensive vision of corruption, but it also demands that the full scope of problematic tax conduct, reaching beyond currently-specified tax crimes, be embraced. This approach requires reframing issues that may historically have been perceived exclusively through one lens—for example, tax abuse—so that they may now be analyzed through a richer and more integrated frame with tax abuse and corruption combined. Of course, with this effort at both definitional and conceptual expansion comes a wide range of objections, questions, and resistance. Given the depth and complexity of the issues, this initial article cannot tackle all of them. Rather, this article, which serves as both the lead off to this symposium and as an initial foray into reconceptualizing the societally undermining behavior of political, social, and economic elites, begins a conversation from which future research should build. Accordingly, Part II explores the definitional facets of both corruption and tax crime that will ground subsequent analysis. Starting at the global level, Part III identifies patterns of tax abuse and corruption, and introduces one of their vital interconnections: their parallel structure. Part IV shifts to the domestic level, probing how tax abuse and corruption impact national governance and democracy, and introduces further interconnections: how both operate in tandem and reinforce each other. The Conclusion places this initial examination in context and offers guidance for next steps
