ABSTRACT
According to this popularised aphorism, taxes are ubiquitous, as they affect practically everybody, and surely they are as little in our personal interest as death. Yet, while the everyday use of the expression does not occur without a wink, science seems to have missed the humour in it. It is certainly true that taxation deserves the closest scientific attention, as hardly any other legislation has such a widespread impact on our lives, from 'impacting personal decisions to shaping economic phenomena, political forces and the institutional fabric of our society' (Long and Swingen, 1991, p. 63 8). Furthermore, the failure to comply with tax laws costs states billions of dollars each year, thus impacting severely on their provision of government services and their socio-economic functioning (see Andreoni, Erard and Feinstein, 1998). However, the dominant theoretical paradigm that understands tax compliance in terms of individual self-interest, that is, as an individual's rational choice aimed at maximising individual outcomes under conditions of uncertainty (in the tradition of Allingham and Sandmo, 1972), misses important dimensions of the phenomenon. In recent years, a number of researchers have pointed to the limited understanding this paradigm provides and delivered empirical evidence for the role of 'non-economic' factors in tax compliance (see Grasmick and Bursik, 1990; De Juan, Lasheras and Mayo 1994; Reekers, Sanders and Roark, 1994; Aim, Sanchez and De Juan, 1995). At the same time, there have been attempts to incorporate factors such as equity considerations and moral constraints into traditional expected utility theory, as another category of individual outcomes to be maximised (see Gordon, 1989; Cowell, 1992; Bordignon, 1993; Falkinger, 1995).
