Social responsibility, professional commitment and tax fraud

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to document relationships between accountants socioeconomic beliefs and attitudes and their professional commitment and ethical decisions in a domain-specific context. Specifically, it investigates the relationships among Chinese tax accountants level of belief in the importance of corporate ethics and social responsibility, affective/normative professional commitment and ethical judgements/intentions in a case involving client pressure to commit tax fraud. Design/methodology/approach - The study employs a survey of tax practitioners employed by public accounting firms in China. The data are analyzed using linear regression and structural equation modelling. Findings - The stakeholder view, representing both normative and practical support for the importance of corporate ethics and social responsibility, was strongly and positively associated with professional commitment among tax practitioners. The stakeholder view also exhibited a strong negative association with intentions to engage in tax fraud. Tax accountants who possessed higher levels of professional commitment judged tax fraud as more unethical, and such ethical judgements were associated with a lower likelihood of intending to engage in fraud.