Implications of Tax Morale in Tax Compliance Behavior: Albania’s Case

Abstract

Recent research has tried to prove whether social norms, psychographic elements and attitudes have measurable effects on financial behavior. One of the areas where these elements’ influence is particularly relevant is tax compliance. The main factor to be considered as important in compliance behavior is tax morale, or the intrinsic motivation to pay taxes.

The present paper focuses on the implications of tax morale in tax compliance behavior in Albania. During the analysis we have tried to give the answers of two main questions. Which are the influential factors on tax morale of the Albanian taxpayers? And secondly,how does tax morale impact on tax compliance behavior in Albania? The purpose of this paper is to estimate the influence of internal and external factors on tax morale and then to analyze their effect on tax compliance behavior.

The conclusions of this paper are based on literature review and data analysis gathered from questionnaires to estimate the implications of those factors considered as relevant to tax morale. There is an evident connection between these factors and tax compliance behavior. As a consequence this paper is relevant to Albanian taxpayers’ attitude and further research studies are recommended to be made.

Keywords: tax morale, tax compliance behavior, tax evasion, fairness of the system

JEL Classification: H26, H73, M42