Does membership in religious brotherhood affect tax morale: evidence from Senegal

Abstract

Many social scientists consider religiosity and religious identity as a fundamental factor facilitating tax compliance and thus tax morale. However, previous studies have so far mostly focused on western countries and few of them have examined the relationship between religion affiliation and tax morale in African countries. In this paper we address this issue by testing the causal effect of membership in two main Senegalese Islamic religion brotherhoods (Muridya and Tidjanyya) in tax morale. Using a 2SLS instrumental Variable strategy, the results show that tax morale is positively affected by membership in Mouridya brotherhood and negatively affected by membership in Tidjanyya. In contrast of Muslim member belonging in brotherhoods, the other Muslims present lower level of tax morale. The causal effects we identify raise the question of the channels by which membership affect the degree of tax morale.