SKATT I UTBYTE MOT KORRUPTION? En kvantitativ studie om effekten av uppfattad korruption på samtycke till skatt i Mellanöstern och Nordafrika

Sammanfattning: Numerous studies have shown that tax compliance among citizens tend to be lower when they perceive corruption as being widespread within their countries. One explanation for this is that widespread corruption within a country leads to the government losing its political legitimacy provided by the citizens, leading the same citizens to disregard government laws and regulations to a higher degree. However, the relationship between taxes and corruption has mainly been tested in industrialized and democratic states with an encompassing social contract between the state and its citizens. This leads to the question whether this relationship still behaves the same way in countries that have contextual factors that differ from more industrialized countries, such as a dependency on natural resources. One region with a higher degree of such dependency and a lower degree of democracy is the Middle East and North Africa region, a region which has been largely overlooked in regard to tax research. This study aims to test the relationship between tax compliance and corruption perception by using survey data from eight countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The data is then used to perform a statistical regression analysis to determine whether the relationship is negative or not. The results indicate that the relationship between tax compliance and corruption perception is indeed negative even in the Middle East and North Africa region despite its contextual factors. This means that a higher degree of perceived corruption tends to lead to a lower degree of tax compliance.