The Ethics of Tax Evasion: An Empirical Study of French EMBA Students

Abstract

Most studies on tax evasion have taken either an economics or public finance perspective. Not many studies have investigated tax evasion from the perspective of ethics. One exception is a 1944 doctoral dissertation by Martin Crowe, a Catholic priest who examined the Christian (mostly Catholic) theological and philosophical literature of the past 500 years. His study identified a number of arguments that have been used to justify tax evasion over the centuries. The present study constructed a survey instrument that includes 15 of those historical arguments, plus 3 newer arguments, and distributed it to a group of French EMBA students to determine the extent of support for the various arguments that exists in France today using a seven-point Likert scale. The arguments are then ranked from strongest to weakest. Male and female scores are also compared to determine if there is a significant difference in response based on gender.