Abstract:

In a developed economy, it is a fundamental principle that citizens comply with their tax obligations, given that the financing of the welfare state depends on public revenues, which are fundamentally fed by taxes, being able to sustain public spending; however, illegal attitudes sometimes arise, such as tax fraud or tax evasion, the ultimate aim of which is to reduce the tax burden on the taxpayer. Therefore, a social commitment among the population is essential to eliminate these attitudes in order to increase tax collection and, therefore, the provision of better public goods and services for citizens.

In this context, the objective of the present work is to carry out an initial evaluation of the tax awareness and social commitment of the students of the Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and Management of the University of Jaén, given that, on the one hand, young people present a lower awareness of tax compliance and, on the other hand, most of the students who have been evaluated will become professionals in the future with direct or indirect relation with the tax field, being therefore key their social commitment in the presentation-declaration of the different tax figures.

The initial assessments made by the students, prior to the teaching of the subjects of tax content, about the usefulness of the tax system, the tax burden in Spain and its context in the European Union, the need to contribute to the support of public spending, compliance with tax obligations or the main attitudes related to tax fraud or tax evasion are analyzed. This initial assessment will allow to know the degree of awareness that students have with tax compliance and social commitment, being used as a control group, for a subsequent study to analyze whether there are significant differences with respect to the experimental group, i.e., the assessments of the students after having taught the subjects of tax content taught in the “Grado en Administración y Dirección de Empresas”.

The results obtained in the present study determine that, in general, the degree of awareness of students regarding tax compliance and social commitment to the financing of the welfare state is quite low, this being a similar opinion among the students surveyed, so it could be concluded that there is unanimity of criteria. In addition, students identify income evasion to tax havens and the underground economy as the most harmful types of fraud, while recognizing businessmen and celebrities as the groups that most fail to comply with their tax obligations.

Keywords:

Tax compliance, social commitment, tax obligations, student awareness.