GÜVENİN VERGİ AHLAKI ÜZERİNDEKİ ETKİSİ: ÜLKELER ARASI BİR ARAŞTIRMA

Kamu mali yönetimi alanındaki tartışmalarda, vergi yükümlülüklerinin yerine getirilmesinde en az cezalar ve yasal yaptırımlar kadar mükelleflerin vergi ahlakının da etkili olduğu öne sürülmektedir. Özellikle, denetim ve cezaların nispeten düşük olduğu ülkelerde bireylerin vergi kaçırma eğilimlerinin yüksek olmaması, bu bireylerin içinde yaşadıkları toplumda olumlu bir sosyal sermaye etkisinin olduğunu düşündürmektedir. Bir toplumun geçmişten geleceğe taşıdığı değer yargıları ile şekillenen vergi ahlakı ve ortaya çıkardığı vergi uyumu, o toplumun sosyal sermaye stokunun niteliği ile yakın ilişkilidir. Bu çerçevede, bu çalışma, sosyal sermayenin önemli bir bileşeni olan ‘güven’ duygusunun, vergi ahlakını nasıl etkilediğini incelemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Çalışmada bu amaca yönelik olarak, 60 ülkede binlerce kişiye uygulanan Dünya Değerler Anketi verilerinin kullanılması suretiyle ülkeler arası yatay-kesit regresyon tahminleri gerçekleştirilmiştir. Bu regresyon tahminlerinde, her bir ülke için bireylerin ortalama güven düzeyini ölçen farklı kapsama sahip nicel göstergeler kullanılmıştır. Bu tahminler sonucunda, bireylerin devlet sistemine ve birbirlerine duydukları güvenin yüksek olduğu ülkelerde vergi ahlakının da yüksek olduğu bulgusuna ulaşılmıştır. Hükümetlerin vergi uyumunu arttırmak üzere aldığı zorlayıcı önlemlerin yanında, bir toplum içinde kurumsal anlamda geçmişten bugüne aktarılan bir sosyal sermaye türü olan güvenin gönüllü vergi uyumunu teşvik eden bir unsur olduğu anlaşılmıştır.

THE EFFECT OF TRUST ON TAX MORALE: A CROSS-COUNTRY RESEARCH

Debates in the field of public fiscal-management assert that tax morale is at least as essential as punishments and enforcements for fulfilling the tax obligations. Especially, the absence of individuals with high tendency for evading taxes in countries where tax audits and punishments are relatively low, implies the presence of a positive social-capital effect on individuals in the society they live. The tax morale and its tax compliance outcome, which are shaped by value judgements that are transferred from the past to future in a society, are closely related with the quality of the social capital stock of that society. Within this framework, this study aims at exploring how trust, an essential ingredient of social capital, affects the tax morale. In the study, with respect to this objective, cross-section regression estimations are carried out across countries by using the data from the World Values Survey, which is conducted to thousands of people in 60 countries. In these regression estimations, various quantitative indicators with different contents are used for measuring the level of trust in each of the countries. As a result of these estimations, tax morale is found to be high in countries where individuals’ trust to the governmental system and to each other are high. This implies that trust, which is a type of social capital transferred institutionally in a society from the past to the present, is a factor that encourages the voluntary tax compliance beside the coercive precautions taken by governments to increase the tax compliance.

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