Policy Forum: Transparency—An Essential Condition for Ethical Behaviour in Tax Planning

Abstract

Ethics play a significant role in a critical assessment of tax practice, but ethical standards on their own have a rather limited influence on tax-planning decisions; therefore, transparency is a necessary tool. Tax planning has traditionally been driven by cost-benefit analysis and by a risk-management perspective. However, closer public scrutiny of corporate tax affairs and increased disclosure requirements have put pressure on tax-planning decisions, thus adding an ethical dimension to the risk-management perspective. Transparency is certainly essential in limiting the aggressiveness of tax planning, but its impact on ethics may be broader in providing an occasion to change the "moral meanings" in relation to tax-planning activities for those involved.