The moral compass of women, older people and churchgoers points firmly in the direction of tax compliance, according to a leading Queensland University of Technology tax researcher.
Professor Benno Torgler, from QUT's Faculty of Business, said "tax morale" was by far the greatest influence in motivating people to pay their taxes, contrary to the belief that penalties deterred tax evaders.
In his new book titled Tax Compliance and Tax Morale: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis, Professor Torgler raises the question of why citizens pay their taxes.
"Nobody likes paying taxes," he said. "Therefore a seemingly obvious government strategy is to enforce people to pay their taxes following a deterrence policy."
"But my research has shown that factors such as trust plays an important role in shaping tax morale around the world as well as in Australia," he said.
Professor Torgler, who has spent many years researching tax morale, said the morals of different groups within society played a key role in determining the likelihood of a person's decision to pay their taxes.
"Taxpayers do not act as isolated individuals playing a game against nature. The behaviour of other taxpayers is important to understanding taxpayers' compliance," he said.
"For example being a woman rather than a man increases the probability of a person stating that tax evasion is never justified. Therefore women have significantly higher levels of tax morale than men."
Professor Torgler said another key factor influencing tax morale was the relationship between the taxpayer and their government.
"If a government is seen to be acting in a trustworthy manner, taxpayers are more willing to comply with their tax obligations," he said.
"If citizens feel they have a meaningful voice in influencing the state, if they perceive that their interests are properly represented in political institutions and if they consider government to be not wasteful but helpful, their willingness to comply with their tax obligations will increase."
Professor Torgler said over the last two decades there had been a significant increase in tax morale in Australia.
He said this was mostly due to Australia's tax reforms, the introduction of a self-assessment tax system and an improvement in the transparency of public administration.
"In 1995, 62 per cent of respondents thought that tax evasion was never justifiable, compared to 48 per cent in 1981," he said.
"These findings are promising as they suggest that Australians' level of tax morale has in fact increased over the time period...and the belief that people should pay their taxes appears to have become stronger in Australia since the early 1980s."
Professor Torgler said his research highlighted the importance of governments and institutions supporting initiatives that promote tax morale, over implementing harsh sanctions and penalties that seek to prevent tax evasion.