GINSI TRIANESTI

008201500117
Accounting/Taxation 2015

Title : The Social Norms of Tax Compliance: Evidence from Australia,

Singapore, and the United States.
Authors : Donna D. Bobek, Robin W. Roberts, and John T. Sweeney
Journal Name : Journal of Business Ethics
Motivation of Article
Traditional economic models of tax compliance, which primarily emphasize enforcement and
detection variables are unable to explain current levels of compliance. In fact, particularly in the
U.S., compliance is much higher than these economic models would suggest. So, researchers begin
to incorporate non-economic variables into their models in order to have a better understanding of
the social influences on individuals’ ethical decision-making can be helpful to researchers as well
as participants in the global economy.
Logic behind Hypothesis
H1 : Most other economic researchers are likely referring to social norms and personal norms
when modeling tax compliance behavior.
H2 : Wenzel (2004) finds that personal norms (he did not measure subjective norms) are more
influential than general social norms.
H3 : Most inter-country accounting research focusses on the construct of cultural norms. If Alm
and Sanchez (1995) are correct in attributing the difference in tax compliance behavior to social
norms, then after accounting for social norms, we would expect that country would not be
significant in explaining compliance
Methodology
They used samples of student and non-student as subjects that were obtained in three countries:
Australia, Singapore, and the U.S. To investigate for non-response bias, they compared the mean
item responses between early and late U.S. and Singaporean subjects (all of the Australian data
was collected at the same time). For experimental instrument, subjects responded to an experimental
instrument that presented a hypothetical tax compliance dilemma.
Result
They used descriptive statistics for this research. The results reported in Panel B of Table V provide
evidence in support of all three hypotheses. Personal/subjective norms (Factor 1) and injunctive
norms (Factor 2) were significantly related to compliance intentions. This provides support for
Hypothesis One. Regarding Hypothesis Two, personal/subjective norms (Factor 1) were much
more strongly related to subjects’ compliance intentions than either injunctive norms (Factor 2) or
descriptive norms (Factor 3). Descriptive norms were not a significant influence on compliance
intentions. Thus, Hypothesis Two is supported. They include a country indicator variable in the
regression reported in Table V that have the results to provide partial support for Hypothesis Three.
Conclusion
The main purpose of this present study is to test the conjecture, presented by prior economics and
accounting research, that a primary determinant of tax compliance is social norms. Further, their
aim is to provide more specificity to what exactly is meant when we attribute an effect to social
norms. They test their research hypotheses by obtaining responses to a hypothetical compliance
dilemma from taxpayers in three different countries: Australia, Singapore, and the U.S. Their
results show that the four different types of social norms are highly correlated; however, when
subjected to factor analysis and varimax rotation to obtain orthogonal factors, three factors emerge.
Limitation and Future Research
Limitation of this research is their result cannot be generalized beyond the three countries studied.
The differences in the demographics of the subjects across countries, although controlled for in the
statistical tests, may also have introduced additional error. Thus generalization of results within
each country must also be made with caution. Future research should seek to determine both ways
to influence norms directly (e.g., through advertising appeals) and the effect public policy
decisions have on citizens’ social norms regarding tax compliance.