Everyday representations of tax avoidance, tax evasion, and tax flight: Do legal differences matter?

Author(s)

Erich Kirchler, Boris Maciejovsky, Friedrich Schneider

Abstract

From an economic point of view, legal considerations apart, tax avoidance, tax evasion and tax flight have similar effects, namely a reduction of revenue yields, and are based on the same desire to reduce the tax burden. Due to legal differences and moral concerns it is, however, likely that individuals perceive them as different and as unequally fair. Overall, 252 fiscal officers, business students, business lawyers, and small business owners produced spontaneous associations to a scenario, describing tax avoidance, tax evasion, or tax flight, and evaluated them as positive, neutral or negative. The results indicate that everyday representations differ with respect to tax avoidance, tax evasion, and tax flight. Tax evasion was perceived rather negatively, tax flight neutrally, and tax avoidance positively. 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Organisation(s)

External organisation(s)

Johannes Kepler Universität Linz, Max Planck Institute for Research into Economic Systems

Journal

Journal of Economic Psychology

Volume

24

Pages

535-553

No. of pages

19

ISSN

0167-4870

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-4870(02)00164-2

Publication date

2003

Peer reviewed

Yes

Austrian Fields of Science 2012

5010 Psychology

Portal url

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/024edd68-6079-4168-b9ad-c705e80ea2bc