The slippery slope framework explains tax compliance along two main dimensions, trust in authorities and power of authorities, which influence taxpayers’ compliance attitudes. Through frequentist and Bayesian analyses, we investigated the framework’s assumptions on a sample of 2786 self-employed taxpayers from eleven post-communist and non-post-communist countries doing business in five economic branches. After using scenarios that experimentally manipulated trust and power, our results confirmed the framework’s assumptions regarding the attitudes of the self-employed taxpayers; trust and power fostered intended tax compliance and diminished tax evasion, trust boosted voluntary tax compliance, whereas power increased enforced tax compliance. Additionally, self-employed taxpayers from post-communist countries reported higher intended tax compliance and lower tax evasion than those from non-post-communist countries. Our results offer tax authorities insights into how trust and power may contribute to obtaining and maintaining high tax compliance levels amid global economic challenges, downturns, and increasing tax compliance costs.

The aim of this study is to explore the impact between religiosity and voluntary tax compliance and enforced tax compliance for self-employed taxpayers in Turkey, where Islam is the predominant religion. A questionnaire survey was administrated to 375 male and 28 female self-employed taxpayers. In this paper, two dimensions of religiosity, namely interpersonal and intrapersonal religiosity, were studied. Factor analysis and ordinary least squares regression methods were used for data analyses. The results of the study illustrate that general religiosity has a statistically positive impact on both voluntary and enforced tax compliance. When we consider the dimensions of religiosity, only intrapersonal religiosity appears to be a significant contributor only to voluntary tax compliance. Nevertheless, interpersonal religiosity has no significant statistical effect on both voluntary and enforced tax compliance. This is one of the pioneer studies of its kind, and investigates the relationship between religiosity and tax compliance from the perspective of developing countries, particularly, Turkey.

(2011). The ethics of tax evasion: a study of Turkish opinion. Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies: Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 249-262.

This chapter summarizes the results of 14 studies that were conducted on the relationship between sector of employment and attitude toward bribery. Additional summaries will be published in the second volume of this series, The Ethics of Bribery: Country Studies.

The present study is part of a much larger study that examined the ethics of bribery and the ethics of tax evasion from a variety of perspectives. In this study, data were taken from the most recent World Values Survey. This chapter focused on Muslim views on the ethics of accepting a bribe. Overall, opposition to taking a bribe was strong; 69 percent believed that taking a bribe could never be justified. The youngest age group (16-29) was significantly more open to the idea of taking a bribe than were the three older age groups. Those with a tertiary education were significantly more opposed to bribe taking than were the other groups. Homemakers not otherwise employed had the strongest opposition to bribe taking, while those working part-time tended to have significantly less opposition to bribe taking than several other groups. The upper social class had the least opposition to bribe taking, while the working class showed the strongest opposition. Those in the highest income level had the least opposition to bribe taking (perhaps because a portion of their income derived from taking bribes?). Those who were quite happy were significantly more opposed to bribe taking than were those in the not at all happy category. Those in the private non-profit sector were significantly less opposed to bribe taking than those in the government or private business sector. Those who did not have very much confidence in government were significantly less opposed to bribe taking than were the other three groups. Gender, marital status, position on the political spectrum were not significant variables.