THE ETHICS OF TAX EVASION: PERSPECTIVES IN THE THEORY AND

PRACTICE

Alison Geraldine Cárdenas Poveda

Docente: Oscar Orlando Piñeros Barreto

Tributario I

Universidad Militar Nueva Granada

Facultad de Ciencias Económicas

Cajicá, 2020.
THE ETHICS OF TAX EVASION: PERSPECTIVES IN THE THEORY AND
PRACTICE

Chapter 1: Four views on the Ethics of Tax Evasion

At the beginning of the chapter, the author talks about the three views on the ethic tax
evasion published in the journal of business ethics, but actually he notes that there is one
that was omitted. Tax evasion has been in existence ever since governments started
imposing taxes.

The first view is tax evasion is never ethical, that means that the individuals have a duty to
state to pay whatever taxes the state demands. The consent Theory justified that there are
not high taxes because people determine the level dependent on their incomes. People
doesn’t intervene in the government decisions because they are too busy thought about on
their work, for that reason the government have special people that know how to do the
trade policy. In our government, if we evade taxes, it would be possible to go to jail. For
that reason, it is important to make good decisions and make good acts.

The second view is tax evasion is always ethical; government is a mere thief that
confiscates assets, percentages of paychecks. Without the consent of the owners of the
property. Governments are of necessity a monopoly within any particular jurisdiction. They
have a monopoly on force to be effective, or so it has been argued. Corporations are
voluntary associations. The interesting point from the perspective of determining when tax
evasion is ethical and when it is not is the fact that some people who consider themselves or
be archists, believers in the legitimacy of government. Laws disappear only when repealed,
unless there is a clause within the law that states that the law is good for only a certain
period of time.

The third view is the tax evasion is sometimes ethical; the tax evasion is ethical in some
cases and unethical in others. Angelus of Clavisio states that there is not an ethical
obligation to pay taxes if the government does not use the revenues collected to benefit the
society. According to Genicot, partial evasion is justified on the grounds that the
government does not have the right to the full amount and that it would be unfair to impose
heavier taxes on conscientious men while wicked men usually pay less. The tax evasion is
sometimes ethical, there is no clear dividing line that people can agree on regarding when
evasion is ethical and when it is not. If people believe that the evasion is a moral obligation,
it is not enough for being increase the social benefit.

Finally, the last view, there is an affirmative duty to evade taxes; society benefits by
evasion because the result is positive, evading taxes reduces injustice in society because in
some cases, taxes violate property rights. As a result of the evil government, there is a duty
of resistance, and one way of resistance is the tax evasion that helps to cut off funding to an
evil regime. It is too hard to believe that the government does good things to help the
society. All tax collections are put into a common fund, so total evasion results in not
paying a tax one has a moral duty to pay support other projects, assuming there is moral
duty to pay something. The ethical choice increases efficiency or societal wealth.

The author tell us that the private sector is more efficient than the government sector
because the private sector can do whatever they want in an economical and efficient way
than the government.

Tax evasion are meant to reduce the tax liability ultimately, but what makes the difference
is that the former is justified on the governments law as it does not make any offence or
breaks any law. This is not the product of legal impossibility but rather of governance
failure. The answer to this governance is not to turn away from law implementing an illegal
standard of behavior based in the language of morality.