Managers’ ethics of tax evasion: the roles of family, religion, and social conditions

ax income is one of the essential financial resources to maintain a nation’s development, as tax revenue promotes the advancement of social welfare and community affairs. However, tax evasion has been a persistent governmental and societal concern. In order to expand insights on tax evasion of managers, the authors used Emile Durkheim’s sociological theory of anomie to investigate the individual-level association between managers’ perceived family and religion importance and their attitude toward tax evasion. Additionally, the theory was employed to examine how country-level aspects moderate that individual-level relationship. The hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) method was utilized to analyze data of 3,475 managers from 47 countries obtained from the World Values Survey (WVS). Results indicated that the managers’ perceived family and religion importance were negatively related to their ethics of tax evasion. Moreover, the individual- level relationships were moderated by the country-level factors of poverty, good governance, political integration, and social integration. Most study findings supported Durkheim’s original propositions, whereas complementary arguments were offered to explain the results contradicting them. Since there are no existing studies on the influence of managers’ perceived family and religion importance on the ethics of tax evasion and how social perspectives moderate their impacts, the results of this study offer deeper insights into understanding the issue. Practical implications for organizations and society were discussed to reinforce managers’ ethics of tax evasion. The study findings will help organizations and governments establish social programs that will decrease managers’ likelihood to evade taxes, thereby contributing to the development of organizations and the nation