Ethical reasoning and decision making in tax practitioners

This is an online seminar run by FERNFH, Austria - please join the talk with the link below.

Online-event link: click here

Abstract

Tax avoidance is an issue that raises public concern in many countries. Internationally, this has become the focus of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting initiative of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and the G20. There has been particular concern about the tax paid by corporations, and there have even been demonstrations about tax loopholes and companies that do not pay tax. The general public, as well as governments, are increasingly taking the view that companies and rich individuals should pay their “fair share of tax” and not to do so has, for some years, been discussed as an ethical issue.

Tax practitioners are at the heart of this issue as they offer advice on how their clients should structure their affairs, and often are seen as those who find tax loopholes and originate schemes to take advantage of them. This talk will look at a research project on ethical reasoning in tax practitioners that seeks to unpick what might be the motivating forces behind tax practitioner decision making.

The Speaker

Barbara Summers is Professor of Human Judgment and Decision Making at Leeds University Business School, and is a Director of the Centre for Decision Research. Her research focuses on individual decision making from both cognitive and emotional perspectives, using psychological and analytics methods, with recent projects including disaster risk communication strategies, identifying musical talent with AI, individual financial decision making, and moral reasoning in the tax context.