Personality Traits and Tax Evasion Attitude: The Moderating Role of Religiosity

Tax evasion remains a significant issue despite regulatory improvements, with informal sectors, income underreporting, and corruption contributing to the problem. Studies typically focus on economic factors but overlook non-economic influences, such as psychological factors, social norms, and religion. This research explores the impact of religiosity on tax evasion, particularly how it affects the relationship between personality traits and tax evasion behaviors. Using a sample of 443 individuals from salaried and self-employed backgrounds, the study employed survey methodology to gather data. The results of analysis revealed that personality traits like conscientiousness, openness to experience, neuroticism, agreeableness, and extraversion significantly influence tax evasion attitudes. Conscientiousness particularly affects self-interest tax evasion, while religiosity moderates the relationship between extraversion and self-interest tax evasion and between conscientiousness and justice of system tax evasion. The findings suggest that incorporating religious values into tax policy could help reduce tax evasion. Policymakers are advised to enhance tax compliance by promoting tax awareness through educational programs, emphasizing community benefits, and collaborating with religious scholars to foster ethical tax practices. The study underscores the importance of considering religiosity and personality traits in developing strategies to combat tax evasion, especially in developing countries.