Taxes, organisations and decisions fiduciary tax compliance in two modern economies

An analysis of tax receipts in two jurisdictions, Ireland and the United Kingdom, points to the significance of fiduciary tax collection usually carried out by organisations. This research seeks to establish if the factors which influence the fiduciary tax decision making process of organisations differ from the factors which influence tax compliance decisions by individual taxpayers. If the factors do indeed differ, are the theories which attempt to explain tax compliance behaviour, grounded as they are in individual taxpayer behaviour when settling their own personal tax liabilities, fully appropriate to organisations when settling fiduciary tax liabilities? Because there is little extant literature on organisational tax compliance, a two phase approach to research is adopted. The first phase involved a survey of tax professionals across the two jurisdictions to map out the factors which influence fiduciary tax compliance behaviours by organisations. The second phase involved selecting a range of organisations with disparate fiduciary tax compliance obligations and interviewing officers from them to better understand their tax compliance decision making processes. The research findings suggest that influences on organisational fiduciary tax compliance decisions indeed differ from those which influence tax compliance decisions by individuals. Organisations report a greater concern for the commercial and reputational consequences of fiduciary tax default than for revenue authority sanctions and a different appreciation of the risk of discovery of tax default. The findings also suggest that it may not be possible to consider organisational fiduciary tax compliance behaviours independently of the personal career considerations of the tax decision making officers working within those organisations. These findings prompt a revised formulation of Expected Utility Theory, as it is applied in the literature to tax compliance decisions generally, to better describe and predict fiduciary tax compliance decisions by organisations.