IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ibf/acttax/v4y2012i1p53-74.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Ethics Of Tax Evasion: A Survey Of Hispanic Opinion

Author

Listed:
  • Robert W. McGee,
  • Arsen M. Djatej,
  • Robert H. S. Sarikas,

Abstract

The present paper is an empirical study, the goal of which is to determine the strength of various arguments that have been used to justify tax evasion and to determine whether results differ based on certain demographic variables. A survey instrument was constructed using a seven-point Likert and distributed to 316 business students at a university in South Texas. The 18 arguments were ranked in terms of strength, from strongest to weakest. Comparisons were also made according to gender, age, and academic major to determine if the viewpoints for these demographics were significantly different. Academic major was the only demographic variable where significant differences in opinion were found. For some of the 18 arguments justifying tax evasion, accounting students were significantly more averse to tax evasion than were business and economics majors. Some arguments justifying tax evasion were stronger than others. The strongest arguments for evading taxes were in cases where the government engaged in human rights abuses. Other strong arguments were in cases where the tax system was perceived as unfair, where tax rates were too high, where government officials were corrupt or where tax funds were not spent wisely.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert W. McGee, & Arsen M. Djatej, & Robert H. S. Sarikas,, 2012. "The Ethics Of Tax Evasion: A Survey Of Hispanic Opinion," Accounting & Taxation, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 4(1), pages 53-74.
    • Handle: RePEc:ibf:acttax:v:4:y:2012:i:1:p:53-74
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.theibfr2.com/RePEc/ibf/acttax/at-v4n1-2012/AT-V4N1-2012-5.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kirchler, Erich & Hoelzl, Erik & Wahl, Ingrid, 2008. "Enforced versus voluntary tax compliance: The "slippery slope" framework," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 210-225, April.
    2. Reckers, Philip M.J. & Sanders, Debra L. & Roark, Stephen J., 1994. "The Influence of Ethical Attitudes on Taxpayer Compliance," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 47(4), pages 825-836, December.
    3. Robert McGee, 2006. "Three Views on the Ethics of Tax Evasion," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 67(1), pages 15-35, August.
    4. Robert W. McGee, 2008. "Opinions on Tax Evasion in Asia," Springer Books, in: Robert W. McGee (ed.), Taxation and Public Finance in Transition and Developing Economies, chapter 17, pages 309-320, Springer.
    5. Robert McGee & Simon Ho & Annie Li, 2008. "A Comparative Study on Perceived Ethics of Tax Evasion: Hong Kong Vs the United States," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 77(2), pages 147-158, January.
    6. repec:icf:icfjpf:v:04:y:2006:i:2:p:38-68 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Joel Slemrod, 2007. "Cheating Ourselves: The Economics of Tax Evasion," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 21(1), pages 25-48, Winter.
    8. Robert W. McGee (ed.), 2012. "The Ethics of Tax Evasion," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-1-4614-1287-8, December.
    9. repec:icf:icfjpf:v:05:y:2007:i:2:p:21-33 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Robertson Amoah & Samuel Yeboah Asuamah & Newman Amaning, 2014. "An Investigation into Tax Evasion in Ghana," International Journal of Empirical Finance, Research Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 2(3), pages 115-122.
    2. Colin C Williams & Junhong Yang, 2017. "Tackling falsely-declared salaries in Bulgaria: evidence from a 2015 survey," Economic Alternatives, University of National and World Economy, Sofia, Bulgaria, issue 3, pages 333-351, September.
    3. Robert W. McGee & Ken Devos & Serkan Benk, 2016. "Attitudes towards Tax Evasion in Turkey and Australia: A Comparative Study," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-13, March.
    4. Colin C. WILLIAMS & Josip FRANIC, 2017. "Tackling the illegitimate under-reporting of salaries in Southeast Europe: some lessons from a 2015 survey in Bulgaria, Croatia and FYR Macedonia," Eastern Journal of European Studies, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 8, pages 5-28, June.
    5. Colin C. Williams & Slavko Bezeredi, 2018. "Evaluating Policy Approaches Towards Undeclared Work: Some Lessons from FYR of Macedonia," South-Eastern Europe Journal of Economics, Association of Economic Universities of South and Eastern Europe and the Black Sea Region, vol. 16(2), pages 171-187.
    6. Colin C. Williams, 2014. "Confronting the Shadow Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15370.
    7. Jaanika Merikull & Tairi Room & Karsten Staehr, 2013. "Perceptions of unreported economic activities in Baltic Firms. Individualistic and non-individualistic motives," Bank of Estonia Working Papers wp2012-8, Bank of Estonia, revised 04 Feb 2013.
    8. Robert McGee & Simon Ho & Annie Li, 2008. "A Comparative Study on Perceived Ethics of Tax Evasion: Hong Kong Vs the United States," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 77(2), pages 147-158, January.
    9. Hirt, Christian & Ortlieb, Renate, 2012. "Cultural standards of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Empirical findings and implications for strategic human resource management," Journal of East European Management Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 17(2), pages 205-225.
    10. Gebhard Kirchgässner, 2011. "Tax Morale, Tax Evasion and the Shadow Economy," Chapters, in: Friedrich Schneider (ed.), Handbook on the Shadow Economy, chapter 10, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Colin C. Williams & Friedrich Schneider, 2016. "Measuring the Global Shadow Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 16551.
    12. Ross Adriana M. & McGee Robert W., 2011. "Attitudes toward Tax Evasion: A Demographic Study of Malaysia," Asian Journal of Law and Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 2(3), pages 1-51, October.
    13. Levenko, Natalia & Staehr, Karsten, 2023. "Self-reported tax compliance in post-transition Estonia," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 47(3).
    14. Khalil, Sandra & Sidani, Yusuf, 2020. "The influence of religiosity on tax evasion attitudes in Lebanon," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    15. Colin C Williams & Ioana Alexandra Horodnic, 2016. "An institutional theory of the informal economy: some lessons from the United Kingdom," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 43(7), pages 722-738, July.
    16. World Bank & International Finance Corporation, "undated". "Doing Business in the East African Community 2011," World Bank Publications - Reports 27390, The World Bank Group.
    17. Sorin Adrian Ciupitu & Daniela Tudorache, 2015. "Fiscal Pressure Causes Major Problems to Romanian Economy: Underground Economy and Corruption," Knowledge Horizons - Economics, Faculty of Finance, Banking and Accountancy Bucharest,"Dimitrie Cantemir" Christian University Bucharest, vol. 7(1), pages 128-130, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Khalil, Sandra & Sidani, Yusuf, 2020. "The influence of religiosity on tax evasion attitudes in Lebanon," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 40(C).
    2. Ross Adriana M. & McGee Robert W., 2011. "Attitudes toward Tax Evasion: A Demographic Study of Malaysia," Asian Journal of Law and Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 2(3), pages 1-51, October.
    3. Apostol, Oana & Pop, Alina, 2019. "‘Paying taxes is losing money’: A qualitative study on institutional logics in the tax consultancy field in Romania," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-23.
    4. Dinah M. Payne & Cecily A. Raiborn, 2018. "Aggressive Tax Avoidance: A Conundrum for Stakeholders, Governments, and Morality," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 469-487, February.
    5. Pickhardt, Michael & Prinz, Aloys, 2014. "Behavioral dynamics of tax evasion – A survey," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 1-19.
    6. Barbara Culiberg & Domen Bajde, 2014. "Do You Need a Receipt? Exploring Consumer Participation in Consumption Tax Evasion as an Ethical Dilemma," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 124(2), pages 271-282, October.
    7. Rajat Deb & Sourav Chakraborty, 2017. "Tax Perception and Tax Evasion," IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, , vol. 6(2), pages 174-185, July.
    8. Otusanya, Olatunde Julius, 2011. "The role of multinational companies in tax evasion and tax avoidance: The case of Nigeria," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 316-332.
    9. Korndörfer, Martin & Krumpal, Ivar & Schmukle, Stefan C., 2014. "Measuring and explaining tax evasion: Improving self-reports using the crosswise model," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 18-32.
    10. Fábio Pereira Silva & Reinaldo Guerreiro & Eduardo Flores, 2019. "Voluntary versus enforced tax compliance: the slippery slope framework in the Brazilian context," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 66(2), pages 147-180, June.
    11. Bagus, Philipp & Gabriel, Amadeus & Howden, David, 2014. "Causes and Consequences of Inflation," MPRA Paper 79608, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. repec:idq:ictduk:13726 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Möhlmann, Axel, 2013. "Investor home bias and sentiment about the country benefiting from the tax revenue," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 31-46.
    14. Kristina M. Bott & Alexander W. Cappelen & Erik Ø. Sørensen & Bertil Tungodden, 2020. "You’ve Got Mail: A Randomized Field Experiment on Tax Evasion," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(7), pages 2801-2819, July.
    15. Wladislaw Mill & Cornelius Schneider, 2023. "The Bright Side of Tax Evasion," CESifo Working Paper Series 10615, CESifo.
    16. Fadi Alasfour, 2019. "Costs of Distrust: The Virtuous Cycle of Tax Compliance in Jordan," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 155(1), pages 243-258, March.
    17. Hallsworth, Michael & List, John A. & Metcalfe, Robert D. & Vlaev, Ivo, 2017. "The behavioralist as tax collector: Using natural field experiments to enhance tax compliance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 14-31.
    18. James Alm, 2012. "Measuring, explaining, and controlling tax evasion: lessons from theory, experiments, and field studies," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(1), pages 54-77, February.
    19. Amedeo Argentiero & Sandro Casal & Luigi Mittone & Azzurra Morreale, 2021. "Tax evasion and inequality: some theoretical and empirical insights," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 22(4), pages 309-320, December.
    20. Adamu Jibir & Musa Abdu & Tasiu Muhammad, 2020. "Analysis of Tax Compliance in Sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from Firm-Level Study," Econometric Research in Finance, SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Collegium of Economic Analysis, vol. 5(2), pages 119-142, December.
    21. Martin Dufwenberg & Katarina Nordblom, 2022. "Tax evasion with a conscience," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(1), pages 5-29, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    tax evasion; Hispanic; gender; age; major; demographic;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance
    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • J14 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of the Elderly; Economics of the Handicapped; Non-Labor Market Discrimination
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • K34 - Law and Economics - - Other Substantive Areas of Law - - - Tax Law
    • M4 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ibf:acttax:v:4:y:2012:i:1:p:53-74. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Mercedes Jalbert The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Mercedes Jalbert to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.