Tax Compliance and Conditional Cooperation: A Study Based on the Dense Social Trust of Young People

Abstract

Most research exploring the effect of trust on tax compliance focuses on institutional trust or diluted trust. In contrast, the role of dense social trust has been scarcely investigated, even less through rigorous empirical contrasts that determine the potential causal relationship between this type of trust and tax compliance. This paper contributes to this line of research, providing empirical evidence in this regard. Based on a sample of 2059 young university students, and using a structural equation model, we conclude that the behaviors and attitudes towards tax fraud and the economy that occur in the family potentially influence young people’s fiscal awareness.