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The Evolution of Tax Morale in Modern Spain

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Abstract

This paper studies the evolutions of tax morale in Spain in the post-Franco era. Tax morale, defined as the intrinsic motivation to pay taxes, might be a key determinant of the actual degree of tax compliance in a country. But despite its potential significance, most studies in the previous literature have treated tax morale as an exogenous residual. In contrast to the previous tax compliance literature, the current paper investigates tax morale as the dependent variable and attempts to answer what actually shapes tax morale. The empirical analysis uses survey data from two sources: the World Values Survey (WVS) and the European Values Survey (EVS). The data allow us to observe tax morale in Spain for the years 1981, 1990, 1995, and 1999/2000. The study of the evolution of tax morale in Spain over nearly a 20-year span is particularly interesting because it provides close to a natural experiment setting. Constitutional and political changes after Franco died in 1975 and the advent of a fully democratic state, deep tax reforms, a significant push for decentralization, joining the European Community, and so on, provide excellent benchmarks for institutional changes that are expected in the compliance literature to change tax morale.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University in its series International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU with number paper0521.

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Length: 29 pages
Date of creation: 01 Dec 2005
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Handle: RePEc:ays:ispwps:paper0521

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Keywords: Tax Morale; Spain; tax compliance; Spanish Tax Reform;

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References

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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Dong, Bin & Dulleck, Uwe & Torgler, Benno, 2012. "Conditional corruption," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 609-627.
  2. James Alm & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, 2007. "Tax Morale and Tax Evasion in Latin American Countries," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper0732, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
  3. Alm, James & Gomez, Juan Luis, 2008. "Social Capital and Tax Morale in Spain," Economic Analysis and Policy (EAP), Queensland University of Technology (QUT), School of Economics and Finance, vol. 38(1), pages 73-87, March.
  4. Mariana Gerstenblüth & Natalia Melgar & Juan Pablo Pagano & Máximo Rossi, 2009. "Threats in Latin American and Caribbean countries: How do inequality and the asymmetries of rules affect tax morale?," Working Papers 143, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
  5. Guillermo E. Perry & William F. Maloney & Omar S. Arias & Pablo Fajnzylber & Andrew D. Mason & Jaime Saavedra-Chanduvi, 2007. "Informality : Exit and Exclusion," World Bank Publications, The World Bank, number 6730.
  6. Juan Prieto Rodríguez & María José Sanzo Pérez & Javier Suárez Pandiello, 2006. "Economic analysis of attitudes towards fiscal fraud in Spain”," Hacienda Pública Española, IEF, vol. 177(2), pages 107-128, April.
  7. Doerrenberg, Philipp & Peichl, Andreas, 2010. "Progressive Taxation and Tax Morale," IZA Discussion Papers 5378, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  8. James Alm & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, 2007. "Tax Morale and Tax Evasion in Latin America," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper0704, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
  9. Guglielmo Barone & Sauro Mocetti, 2011. "Tax morale and public spending inefficiency," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer, vol. 18(6), pages 724-749, December.
  10. Juan Molero & Francesc Pujol, 2012. "Walking Inside the Potential Tax Evader’s Mind: Tax Morale Does Matter," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 105(2), pages 151-162, January.
  11. Lago-Peñas, Ignacio & Lago-Peñas, Santiago, 2010. "The determinants of tax morale in comparative perspective: Evidence from European countries," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 441-453, December.
  12. Liliana Bunescu & Carmen Comaniciu, 2011. "Romanian Taxpayers’ Inclination To Tax Cheating," Studies in Business and Economics, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Faculty of Economic Sciences, vol. 6(1), pages 19-29, April.
  13. Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez & Klara Sabirianova Peter, 2007. "Myth and Reality of Flat Tax Reform: Tax Evasion and Real Side Response of Russian Households," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper0728, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
  14. Torgler, Benno, 2011. "Tax morale and compliance : review of evidence and case studies for Europe," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5922, The World Bank.
  15. Mutascu, Mihai, 2011. "Compulsory voting and tax revenues," MPRA Paper 33987, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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