Hardback
Tax Compliance and Tax Morale
A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis
9781845427207 Edward Elgar Publishing
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.
More Information
Critical Acclaim
Contents
More Information
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.
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.
Critical Acclaim
‘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
– 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
Contents
Contents: Preface Part I: Background and Research Overviews 1. Introduction 2. What do we Know About Tax Morale and Tax Compliance? 3. Speaking to Theorists and Searching for Facts: Tax Morale and Tax Compliance in Experiments Part II: What Shapes Tax Morale? 4. The Importance of Faith: Tax Morale and Religiosity 5. Tax Morale and Institutions 6. Tax Morale in Latin America 7. Does Culture Matter? A Comparison of Tax Morale in the Former East and West Germany Part III: Tax Policy Strategies 8. Moral Suasion: An Alternative Tax Policy Strategy? Evidence from a Controlled Field Experiment in Switzerland 9. Tax Amnesties and Political Participation Index
