Is there a cultural component in tax morale? Evidence from immigrants in Europe

• We examine the existence of a cultural component in individual tax morale.
• We use data from first generation immigrants in European countries to identify the cultural effect.
• We find that culture is a significant determinant of tax morale.

In this paper we examine the existence of a cultural component in individual tax morale. To identify the effect of culture we use immigrant data drawn from the European Social Survey. We find that culture is a significant determinant of tax morale: the level of tax morale in the country of immigrant origin influences individual tax morale in the destination country. The result is robust to the inclusion of a wide set of individual and aggregate controls and persists across different population segments.