A Multidimensional Analysis of Tax Practitioners' Ethical Judgments Academic Article

abstract

• This study investigates professional tax practitioners' ethical judgments and behavioral intentions in cases involving client pressure to adopt aggressive reporting positions, an issue that has been identified as the most difficult ethical/moral problem facing public accounting practitioners. The multidimensional ethics scale (MES) was used to measure the extent to which a hypothetical behavior was consistent with five ethical philosophies (moral equity, contractualism, utilitarianism, relativism, and egoism). Responses from a sample of 67 tax professionals supported the existence of all dimensions of the MES other than egoism. Regressions of ethical judgments and behavioral intentions on the MES dimensions indicate that ethical decision making is most heavily influenced by the moral equity dimension, followed by the contractualism dimension. In contrast, the utilitarianism and relativism dimensions were only related to ethical judgments and behavioral intentions in isolated instances.

authors

• Strawser, Jerry

published proceedings

• Journal of Business Ethics

author list (cited authors)

• Cruz, C. A., Shafer, W. E., & Strawser, J. R.

citation count

• 78

complete list of authors

• Cruz, Cheryl A||Shafer, William E||Strawser, Jerry R

publication date

• January 2000

publisher

• Springer Nature  Publisher

published in

• Journal of Business Ethics  Journal

keywords

• Basic Behavioral And Social Science
• Behavioral And Social Science

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1023/a:1006140809998

start page

• 223

end page

• 244

volume

• 24

issue

• 3

URL

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1006140809998