Qualitative Exploration of the Social Context of the Tax Payment Process

As a source of government revenue for the provision of various social, welfare, and cultural services, taxes have a long history. With regard to their role in the economic and social developments of societies despite the lack of desirable and a voluntary tax payment behavior, it is necessary to identify the social contexts of tax payment so as to encourage trust and public participation in this process. Thus, this study aimed to explore the social contexts for tax payment behavior and identify the conditions and factors that play a role in increasing or decreasing public trust and participation in it.  

To meet the purpose of the research and achieve a deep understanding of the social context concerning this issue, an interpretive paradigm and qualitative approach was employed based on the grounded theory. The theoretical purposive sampling was used to select the participants. The financial managers of production companies in Yazd Province in Iran, who had lived experiences of the context and consented to participate in this research, were selected as the target community. 13 managers with different ages and work and management experiences participated in the study. The data obtained from the interviews were transcribed and analyzed as soon as they were collected so as to reveal the relevant ambiguous and sensitive points and obtain the final theory; thus, the researcher could pay more attention to them in the subsequent interviews. Sampling continued until the theoretical saturation was reached. At the open coding stage, the text was analyzed line by line (sometimes word by word) and the annotations and additional explanations were written as comments in the Microsoft Word file in the margins of the interview text and the attached concepts. In the next stage, the obtained concepts and subcategories were reduced to the main categories and the core category was constructed in relation to the main categories and subcategories obtained from the previous two stages based on a fixed comparison technique. Finally, to show the structure and process of the discovery and construction of the core category, a paradigm model was drawn up, which consisted of 5 sections: causal conditions, contextual conditions, intervening conditions, axial phenomenon, strategies, and consequences. Throughout the process, we adhered to the ethics and scientific principles by maintaining confidentiality of the information and using nicknames for the participants, besides observing other ethical considerations, such as participant’s consent and non-manipulation of data. 

The research findings indicated 29 main categories and one core category entitled "tax value inversion". Based on this paradigm model, the evidence from the participants' narratives and theoretical design of the research was presented. The research results demonstrated the formation of axial phenomenon called "tax evasion/compulsory taxation". In this way, the actors were faced by a situation that involved coercion and mutual distrust, especially institutional distrust. Accordingly, they were reluctant to pay taxes and even avoided paying them. They made various justifications and excuses to legitimize their tax evasion, resulting in the reduced amount of the paid taxes. However, once they failed in their tax evasion, they were forced by the tax officers to pay them. In general, it could be said that a number of micro and especially macro factors played a role in directing either a voluntary or evasive tax behavior. Both cultural factors, such as a weak tax culture, taxpayers' misconceptions of the tax system functions, and their intentions, and structural and macro factors, including political, economic, and social conditions, played roles in the voluntary or odd taxpayers' performance. For example, the results indicated that economic anomalies, self-interpretation of laws, lack of transparency of tax laws, and structural corruption played significant roles in the taxpayers' increased dissatisfaction and tendencies to evade taxes. Also, it could be said that one of the excuses and justifications made by the actors and taxpayers for tax evasion was a kind of covert protest against the structural conditions of the society, such as political distrust, social despair in improving the situation, expanded injustice, and lack of transparency in taxation and economy. In fact, taxation has lost its value and meaning and become as an anti-value in tandem with the improper structural conditions of the society, economy, and culture. All these have led to collective/national disorder, reproduction of anomic distrust, and very little development in tax systems.