Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons^™

How Do People Justify Not Paying Their Taxes? A Study On Moral Disengagement And Tax Evasion, Grace M. Hufff

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

Early studies on the reasons for tax evasion focused on economics. When economic reasons were deemed insufficient to explain all decisions, researchers added psychological and sociological constructs to their explorations. These studies focused on whether taxpayers see their tax compliance decisions as ethical ones. For those who believe their choice is ethical, they must come to grips with their own internal ethical standards and feelings of guilt when they make an unethical decision. They must then employ some mechanism to disconnect these feelings of guilt from their unethical decision. Researchers have characterized this mechanism of disconnection as neutralization, rationalization, and/or …