Why People Evade Taxes in the Czech and Slovak Republics: A Tale of Twins

The present paper uses a survey of 1062 Czechs and 524 Slovaks to ask why people evade taxes. We maintain that the Czech and Slovak Republics are “twins” separated at birth and that divergences between these countries since their separation in 1992 can explain divergences in their rates of tax evasion. High Slovak tax rates and lower Czech tax rates seem to explain little of the difference in evasion between the two countries. Rising Czech incomes seems the main reason that Czech Republic evades more taxes. We also look at detailed demographic and psychological reasons for tax evasion. We find that morality is a strong deterrent to evasion.