Suchergebnisse

Three claims about trust are challenged: (1) Government honesty promotes generalized trust. (2) Democracy promotes trust. (3) Strong government performance promotes cooperation. Attention is given to the relationship between democracy & trust before considering why some countries are more trusting than others. While government structures are unable to produce trust, it is concluded that government policies can. 2 Tables, 1 Figure, 47 References. J. Zendejas

"Besides monitoring and threatening taxpayers with penalties, the cultivation of their attitudes towards taxation is a topic of immediate interest. The importance of tax morality, meaning taxpayers' honesty in taxation, has been confirmed in current research. However, this is nothing new. In 1927 the economist and sociologist Otto Veit published a fiscal sociological study on this very topic. Veit suggests an extensive economic approach of studying tax morality which is thoroughly based on philosophical and contemporary sociological concepts. In his approach, tax morality is an endogenous variable which depends on the behaviour of the individuals concerned. These individuals are tax legislators, tax administrators, and taxpayers. Tax morality is influenced not only by the technical design of a tax system and by law enforcement, e.g. monitoring, whistle blowing, and punishment, but also by social, political, and cultural factors. In this article, Veit and his work on tax morality are presented. Firstly, Veit will be introduced as a fiscal sociologist. Then, his approach of studying tax morality and its philosophical and sociological foundation will be explained. Finally, conformity with Schmölders' approach in the 1950s and 1960s and with very current research on tax morality will be demonstrated. It is the basic message of this article that some of Veit's ideas are of immediate relevance and worth making use of." (author's abstract)