The Effects of Culture, Economic Freedom, and Oil Price Volatility Spillover on Tax Avoidance in Iran, Considering the Threshold Role of Government Governance Quality

Abstract

Taxation is the most acceptable and suitable tool for government revenue generation from an economic perspective. In many countries, tax revenues are more important than other sources of income. Taxes are also an effective tool for implementing economic policies, including distributive and fiscal policies, and even for guiding the economy toward macroeconomic goals such as economic stabilization, job creation, economic growth, and social welfare improvement. In other words, comparing this important source with others indicates that the higher the share of taxes in financing government expenditures, the significantly lower the undesirable economic effects will be. For this reason, in developed countries, unlike developing countries, taxes play a very significant role in financing government expenditures, and almost the major part of government expenses is met through this channel.This study investigates the effects of culture, economic freedom, and oil price volatility spillover on tax avoidance in Iran, considering the threshold role of government governance quality. The current study is applied in terms of objective and descriptive-analytical in nature, and it falls into the category of ex-post research. The research model is a time-series model for Iran over the period of 1370 to 1403 (Solar Hijri calendar) using the (LSTR) approach. Based on the results of the linearity test estimation, the government governance quality variable was selected as the transition variable. The estimation results of the nonlinear part of the model (second regime) show a negative relationship between the culture index, economic freedom, and governance quality with the tax avoidance index. Furthermore, the oil price volatility spillover variable has a positive and significant effect on tax avoidance at the 95% confidence level.