How the game is played: The salience of ethical values in the field of tax work

As professionals, tax experts hold a public interest mandate, although their understanding of how this plays out in their daily work is not always clear. Ethics are a core element of professionalisation, and yet tax work is often framed as a technical skill, rather than as a practice with societal impact that relates to the common good. With growing inequality, and an increased recognition of the role of taxation in mediating this, both the profession and the public are concerned with how tax professionals understand the ethical dimensions of their work. The way in which ethics are understood and applied in this technical context is societally relevant but under-explored in the field. This chapter is largely based on a global field study, developed as part of an international project exploring tax and inequality. We draw on a set of semi-structured interviews (n=68) across eleven countries to explore the salience and nature of ethics in the work of tax experts. Complementing experimental research in the area (Hageman & West, 2022), our interview approach is a direct one, aiming to capture the voice of tax professionals themselves. We uncover a perceived dichotomy between dispassionate professional judgement and personal ethics and a framing of tax as a game facilitating the compartmentalisation of ethics at work. This work contributes to our understanding of how ethics impacts practice in a highly technical field.It also raises questions about ethical formation in a professional context.