Trust or Power: Improving Tax Compliance by Self-Employed Professionals

Abstract

This article considers non-compliance with tax legislation by self-employed professionals, using qualitative data on the tax compliance attitudes of lawyers and dentists in Kenya. The main argument is that corruption and inadequate service delivery, over which the revenue authority has no control, lower tax morale and limit the effectiveness of trust in the authority in increasing voluntary compliance. It is further argued that, under such circumstances, stringent detection and enforcement measures would be more helpful in enhancing these taxpayers’ compliance. This research contributes to the literature on the slippery slope framework on trust and power; most of the empirical work on the framework derives from countries with lower levels of corruption and better public service delivery than most African countries. Thus, this article enhances the understanding of the relationship between trust and power in the context of tax compliance among professionals in Kenya and provides some beneficial insight that may be relevant for other African countries. Tax evasion, trust, power, corruption, tax administration, audits, cooperative compliance, slippery slope framework, Kenya, Africa