This area of work advises international assistance providers on effective capacity building in the area of tax systems development and promotes tax culture, compliance and citizenship through its work on tax morale and trust. 

The Tax and Development Programme also monitors international support to tax system development through the OECD/DAC aid statistics. This allows us to monitor the delivery of commitments under the Addis Tax Initiative's commitment to collectively double donor spending on tax matters by 2020 and the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation’s DRM-related Voluntary Initiatives, which were launched at the Mexico High- Level Meeting in April 2014.

The following publications provide a framework for understanding the important nexus between governance, taxation and development:

• Governance, Taxation and Accountability: Issues and Practices
• Taxation, State building and Aid Fact Sheet

 

Tax morale

Tax morale measures taxpayer perceptions and attitudes towards paying and evading taxes.  Our work on tax morale outlines several factors that may influence people's willingness to pay taxes and highlights several policy considerations.

• Findings from a 2013 study led to the first Global Source Book on Taxpayer Education (OECD 2015) covering innovative taxpayer education strategies in 28 countries to provide ideas and inspiration to revenue authorities in developing countries for their taxpayer education, literacy and outreach strategies. A second edition (OECD 2021) of this publication used data from a new survey to examine 140 initiatives under implementation in 59 developed and developing countries, offering a classification of different approaches to taxpayer education, and identifying common challenges and solutions.
• The report Tax Morale: What Drives People and Businesses to Pay Tax? (OECD 2019) builds on previous OECD research to identify some of the key socio-economic and institutional drivers of tax morale across developing countries, and seeks to test for evidence of the social contract by examining the impact of public services on tax morale.
• Our study on What drives tax morale? (OECD 2013) provides analysis of public opinion surveys to examine what lies behind citizens' tax morale other than their legal obligation to do so.
• Tax Morale II: Building Trust between Tax Administrations and Large Businesses (OECD 2022) focuses on tax morale in respect to large businesses; it uses a unique dataset of tax administration officials perceptions on large business behaviour, combined with previous data on MNE perceptions, to analyse the relationships and levels of trust between tax administrations and business. It also provides a range of actions that can be taken to help build trust and encourage improved tax morale. The report was released on 5 September 2022 and presented at IFA 2022 in Berlin during a session discussing corporate officers’ duties to tax planning vs. tax morality and compliance.

 

Understanding tax morale

While much remains to be done to build a sustainable taxpaying culture, a greater focus on tax morale can provide a route to increased voluntary compliance, for a tax system that is fair and equitable for all taxpayers around the globe. 

 

News and events

Tax Morale Roundtables (Multiple events) December 2020 to May 2021

Following the 2019 publication Tax Morale: What Drives People and Businesses to Pay Tax? (OECD 2019), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) organised, jointly with different regional partner organisations, a series of regional roundtables on tax morale that gathered Administrations, MNEs operating in the different regions, as well as tax professionals, and relevant business associations to facilitate a dialogue between businesses and governments aimed at building tax morale, through improving cooperation and mutual trust between MNEs and tax authorities. 

 

Tax Morale and Responsible Compliance (Side event at IFA Congress 2019) 11 September 2019

As part of a new project on tax morale, the OECD has reanalysed the results of a survey of business perceptions on tax certainty, to identify the constraints and concerns they face in paying in taxes around the world. The new publication launched at this session, Tax Morale: What Drives People and Businesses to Pay Tax? (OECD 2019), has identified some of the factors that may impact tax morale and attitudes towards compliance among businesses, and how they differ in different regions.

 

Call for input: OECD invites public comments on draft report on tax morale 10 April - 10 May 2019

As part of the ongoing work on tax morale, the OECD asked public comments on its publication What is driving tax morale? An empirical analysis on social preferences and attitudes towards taxation. Published in 2019, the publication features new research on both individuals and businesses. It identifies a number of socio-economic and institutional factors that influence tax morale in individuals, such as age, gender, education, and level of trust in government.

 

Tax Morale and Integrity in Developing Countries 19 March 2019

As part of OECD Integrity Week 2019 (18-22 March), this event brought together international experts to discuss these issues of integrity, transparency and trust in the tax system, and the research, tools and approaches needed to identify and implement policies to increase tax morale.

 

Role of Tax Morale in Development 25 January 2019

In January 2019, the OECD's conference on the Role of Tax Morale in Development brought together over 125 delegates from over 65 delegations representing countries, jurisdictions, civil society, business and academia, to discuss the drivers of tax morale, especially in developing countries. Discussions were initiated with a presentation of the OECD's publication What's driving tax morale? An empirical analysis on social preferences and attitudes towards taxation.