Beyond enforcement: what drives tax morale in Ghana?

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the determinants of the motivation to pay tax in Ghana. Traditionally, raising tax morale to ensure compliance is often tied to the level of prevailing enforcement. But beyond enforcement, why do citizens pay tax? Design/methodology/approach – This paper relied on the sixth wave of the World Values Survey data in determining the drivers of tax morale. It used the probit model with different specifications to determine robustness of the results. Findings – The findings remain robust to model specification and show a non-linear relationship between age and tax morale. The level of education, marital status, patriotism, sector of employment, satisfaction with democracy and one’s “fear of God” do not matter in tax morale. The economic class of a person per se is also far from being a significant driver and that people are intrinsically motivated to pay tax once they are satisfied with their financial situation, have trust in the government as well as confidence in the parliament. Originality/value – In addition to being a pioneering micro-econometric work on the determinants of tax morale in Ghana, the main contribution of the study lies in its investigation of a non-linear relationship between age and tax morale in Ghana.