Suchergebnisse

The article deals with the factors that affect the tax morale of the population of the Visegrad Four countries, i.e. Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The evaluation of the answers of the respondents of the European Values Study to the question of whether they justify tax evasion serves as an indicator of tax morale. The authors work on the one hand with the frequency of answers expressing a complete rejection of fraud and on the other hand with average answers on a scale from 1 to 10. Respondents from Slovakia were found to be justifying tax fraud the most, and Polish and Hungarian residents agreed with tax evasion the least. Furthermore, the dependence of tax morale on gender, religion and satisfaction with the political system was analysed. Using contingency tables, it was found that all the monitored factors have a statistically significant effect on the tendency of people to justify tax evasion. The only exceptions were the factor of religion in the Czech Republic and the influence of satisfaction with the political system in Poland, where the relationship with tax morale was not confirmed.

It is often argued that, even if optimal ex post, settlement dilutes deterrence ex ante. We analyse the interest for the tax authority of committing, ex ante, to a settlement strategy. We show that to commit to the use of settlements is ex ante optimal when the tax authority receives signals that provide statistical information about the taxpayers' true tax liability. The more informative the signal, the larger the additional expected revenue raised by the tax authority when using settlement as a policy tool.

Tax evasion is facilitated by corruption, and corruption is facilitated by tax complexity. This article
argues and presents evidence that tax systems have become far more complex than they need to
be. The growth of public sector operations over the past century was accompanied by higher and
more complex taxes, higher public spending, many new government programs, and an increasing
involvement by governments in the functioning of the countries' economies and in the activities of
citizens. It has created a great deal of complexity in public sectors, and a fertile field for corruption,
tax evasion or tax avoidance, and abuses in some government programs. The more governments
relied on tax systems to pursue an increasing number of social and economic objectives, the more
complex the tax systems became and the greater were the opportunities created for some taxpayers
to get around the system. Complexity also encourages the growing army of lobbyists to push for
small tax changes advantageous to their clients, causing tax systems to become increasingly more
complex. In addition, it increases the costs of administering tax systems and of complying with the
many tax obligations. To what extent tax systems have become fertile for corruption and tax evasion
is likely to depend on cultural characteristics of countries among other factors. Globalization has
opened new doors and new opportunities for individuals and corporations who operate, or can
operate, globally to exploit the new tax-avoiding possibilities created by globalization and a global
financial system. Nevertheless, complexity is not inevitable. It could, however, be reduced, as the
experience of some countries has shown.