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Abstract:
This study investigates the effects of attitudes toward the perceived importance of corporate ethics and social responsibility and Machiavellianism on professional tax practitioners' willingness to advocate aggressive avoidance schemes on behalf of corporate clients. We hypothesise that practitioners who perceive corporate ethics and social responsibility as more important will judge aggressive avoidance less favourably, and accordingly will estimate a lower likelihood of acquiescence in such schemes. We also hypothesise that practitioners with stronger Machiavellian orientations will be less likely to feel that corporate ethics and social responsibility are important, and more likely to judge aggressive tax avoidance schemes favourably. The findings, based on a survey of tax professionals in Hong Kong, support the hypotheses.

Social Responsibility, Machiavellianism, Tax Avoidance, Hong Kong Tax Professionals, corporate ethics, avoidance schemes

Abstract:
It has long been recognised that the corporate tax suffers from several inherent deficiencies. However, in recent years, the transformation and integration of the world economy have exacerbated and highlighted these weaknesses, placing a question mark over the future of the tax. Through an examination of the problems besetting the tax today, a critical analysis of the conventional arguments supporting it, and a review of economic and political factors relevant to its continued existence, this article considers its future in the new century.

corporate taxation, tax revenues, tax competition