In this paper we study the social norms to abstain from cheating on the state via benefit fraud and tax evasion. We interpret these norms (called benefit morale and tax morale) as moral goods, and derive testable hypotheses on whether their demand is determined by prices. Employing a large...

In a real-effort laboratory experiment to manipulate evasion opportunities, we study whether the moral evaluation of tax evasion is subject to a self-serving bias. We find that tax morale is egoistically biased: Subjects with the opportunity to evade taxes judge tax evasion as less unethical as...

In a real-effort laboratory experiment to manipulate evasion opportunities, we study whether the moral evaluation of tax evasion is subject to a self-serving bias. We find that tax morale is egoistically biased: Subjects with the opportunity to evade taxes judge tax evasion as less unethical as...

Businesses that rely heavily on cash transactions have been found to be particularly susceptible to low tax ethics. Recent research indicates that cash is a highly powerful and tempting reward, which elicits a strong emotional response. In this paper we investigate how emotions affect tax ethics...

As most of us are aware, the failure to comply with the tax law can lead to tax penalties, which almost always take the form of monetary sanctions. But tax noncompliance has other consequences as well. Collateral sanctions for tax noncompliance — which apply on top of traditional tax penalties...

I develop a unifying conceptual framework of corporate tax planning. The framework accommodates constructs frequently studied in empirical tax accounting research, i.e. tax avoidance, tax aggressiveness, tax sheltering, and tax evasion, by relating them to the seminal notion of effective tax...

The probabilities associated with a tax return being audited or containing underreported tax are formulated here in a different way. This new formulation is mathematically equivalent to the traditional formulation; however, it reveals a trigonometric relationship between these probabilities that...

Tax non-compliance and perceptions of corruption are key challenges to state-building in developing countries. Using a social psychology approach, we develop a theoretical model in which different forms of perceived corruption can adversely influence the way individual taxpayers behave. We then...

Tax enforcement can be prohibitively costly when market transactions and participants are difficult to observe. Evasion among market participants may reduce tax revenue and provide certain types of suppliers an undue competitive advantage. Whether efforts to fully enforce taxes are worthwhile...