The importance of faith: Tax morale and religiosity

The intention of this paper is to analyze religiosity as a factor that potentially affects tax morale. For this purpose, a multivariate analysis has been done with data from the World Values Survey 1995-1997, covering more than 30 countries at the individual level. Several variables, such as church attendance, religious education, active membership in a church or a religious organization, perceived religiosity, religious guidance and trust in the church have been analyzed. The results suggest that religiosity raises tax morale. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.