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

37 Pages Posted: 10 May 2006

See all articles by Benno Torgler

Benno Torgler

Yale University - Yale Center for International and Area Studies

Friedrich Schneider

Johannes Kepler University Linz - Department of Economics; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research); Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Date Written: May 2006

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: tax morale, tax compliance, tax evasion, culture

JEL Classification: H26, H73

Suggested Citation

Torgler, Benno and Schneider, Friedrich G., What Shapes Attitudes Toward Paying Taxes? Evidence from Multicultural European Countries (May 2006). IZA Discussion Paper No. 2117, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=901247 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.901247

Benno Torgler (Contact Author)

Yale University - Yale Center for International and Area Studies ( email )

P.O. Box 208206
New Haven, CT 06520-8206
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.crema-research.ch/fellowseiten/torgler.htm

Friedrich G. Schneider

Johannes Kepler University Linz - Department of Economics ( email )

Altenbergerstrasse 69
A-4040 Linz, 4040
Austria
+43 732 2468 8210 (Phone)
+43 732 2468 8208 (Fax)

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research)

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

HOME PAGE: http://www.CESifo.de

Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

P.O. Box 7240
Bonn, D-53072
Germany

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