The Ethics of Tax Evasion: A Survey of Estonian Opinion

Andreas School of Business Working Paper No. 5/2007

21 Pages Posted: 25 May 2007

See all articles by Robert W. McGee

Robert W. McGee

Fayetteville State University - Department of Accounting

Jaan Alver

Tallinn University of Technology

Lehte Alver

Tallinn University of Technology

Date Written: May 2007

Abstract

In 1944, Martin Crowe, a Catholic priest, wrote a doctoral dissertation titled The Moral Obligation of Paying Just Taxes. His dissertation summarized and analyzed 500 years of theological and philosophical debate on this topic, which identified three basic philosophical positions on the issue. Since Crowe's dissertation, not much has been written on the topic of tax evasion from an ethical or religious perspective.

The present paper is an empirical study, the goal of which is to determine the strength of the 15 arguments justifying tax evasion that Crowe identified plus 3 more recent arguments. A survey was constructed using a seven-point Likert scale that included all three positions and all 18 arguments and distributed to 300 business students, faculty and business practitioners in Estonia. The 18 arguments were ranked in terms of strength, from strongest to weakest. Comparisons were also made according to major, student status, gender and age to determine if the viewpoints for these demographics were significantly different.

Keywords: ethics, tax evasion, Estonia, transition economy, gender, age, public finance

JEL Classification: H26,E62,D6,J16,J14,J1,K34,K42,M14,M4,O52,P35

Suggested Citation

McGee, Robert W. and Alver, Jaan and Alver, Lehte, The Ethics of Tax Evasion: A Survey of Estonian Opinion (May 2007). Andreas School of Business Working Paper No. 5/2007, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=988506 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.988506

Robert W. McGee (Contact Author)

Fayetteville State University - Department of Accounting ( email )

Fayetteville, NC 28301
United States

HOME PAGE: http://robertwmcgee.com

Jaan Alver

Tallinn University of Technology ( email )

Ehitajate tee 5
Tallinn, 12618
Estonia

HOME PAGE: http://www.ttu.ee

Lehte Alver

Tallinn University of Technology ( email )

Ehitajate tee 5
Tallinn, 12618
Estonia

HOME PAGE: http://www.ttu.ee

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