An Empirical Study of Attitudes Toward the Ethics of Tax Evasion in Mali

10 Pages Posted: 4 Oct 2007

See all articles by Robert W. McGee

Robert W. McGee

Fayetteville State University - Department of Accounting

Bouchra Mzali

University of Quebec at Montreal

Date Written: October 2007

Abstract

Most studies on tax evasion have taken either an economics or public finance perspective. Not many studies have investigated tax evasion from the perspective of ethics. One exception is a 1944 doctoral dissertation by Martin Crowe (1944), a Catholic priest who examined the Christian (mostly Catholic) theological and philosophical literature of the past 500 years. His study identified a number of arguments that have been used to justify tax evasion over the centuries.

The present study used a survey instrument that includes 15 of those historical arguments, plus 3 newer arguments, and distributed it to a group of Executive MBA students in Mali, a country in West Africa to determine the extent of support for the various arguments that have been made over the past 500 years using a seven-point Likert scale. The arguments are then ranked from strongest to weakest. This study replicates the studies listed in the references section.

Keywords: ethics, tax evasion, Mali, gender, Africa

JEL Classification: D6, E62, H26, J16, K34, K42, M14, M4, O55

Suggested Citation

McGee, Robert W. and Mzali, Bouchra, An Empirical Study of Attitudes Toward the Ethics of Tax Evasion in Mali (October 2007). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1018511 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1018511

Robert W. McGee (Contact Author)

Fayetteville State University - Department of Accounting ( email )

Fayetteville, NC 28301
United States

HOME PAGE: http://robertwmcgee.com

Bouchra Mzali

University of Quebec at Montreal ( email )

PB 8888 Station DownTown
Succursale Centre Ville
Montreal, Quebec H3C3P8
Canada

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