Factors Influencing Tax Evasion of Businesses: The Case of Albania

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse factors affecting tax evasion of businesses in Albania. Business tax evasion is a phenomenon that has to do with people trying not to pay the level of taxes they owe, as such it is understood to be as old a phenomenon as taxation. Factors affecting tax evasion vary from country to country, although they can be grouped into economic, psychological and social factors. Nowadays tax evasion has become an increasingly worrying phenomenon so it is important to analyse the factors that make people have an unethical attitude towards taxes, in order to identify the policies needed to mitigate this phenomenon. In our paper we initially made a description of this phenomenon and the main influencing factors. Following the data collected through a questionnaire in some businesses in Albania we have made an analysis to find the relationship between the tendency for business evasion and demographic factors such as age and gender of the person as well as factors such as the period of operation of the firm in the market, the size of the firm and the perception of the level of fines. The results show that young people, men, new firms in the market, large firms and when the perception of the level of fines is low there is a greater tendency for evasion.