Investigating the Impact of Financial Managers' Personality Traits on Tax Fraud; Concerning Gender and Type of Firm

Subject Areas : Financial Accounting

Somayeh Najafi ¹ , Allah Karam Salehi ² , Houshang Amiri ³

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Received: 2024-06-28 Accepted : 2025-01-02 Published : 2025-01-17

Keywords: Personality Traits , Tax Fraud, Five-Factor Model,

Abstract :

Tax fraud is the legal minimization of tax liability through appropriate financial planning techniques, which often involve techniques, accounting methods, and fraudulent transactions, and pursue little or no purpose other than creating a tax advantage. There is no doubt that tax fraud is a legal way to reduce the amount of tax, and individuals with different personality traits can take dissimilar procedures to reduce the amount of tax. In this study, the impact of personality traits on tax fraud concerning gender (male and female) and type of firm (listed and non-listed) is investigated. The statistical population of the study includes all financial managers of listed and non-listed firms in 2020 who are not exempt from taxes. Information about personality traits was collected through a questionnaire and SPSS software version 21 was used to test the hypotheses. The results suggest that the personality traits of neuroticism, extraversion, flexibility (openness to experience), and agreement have a positive and significant effect on tax fraud. In contrast, the personality trait of conscientiousness has a negative effect on tax fraud. This effect was also observed in both male and female financial managers. The results also indicate that the effect of personality traits of neuroticism, extraversion, and agreement on tax fraud in the managers of listed firms is positive and the effect of personality traits of flexibility (openness to experience) and conscientious is negative on tax fraud, but the effect of personality trait of neuroticism is negative and the effect of flexibility (openness to experience) on tax fraud in listed firms is not statistically significant. In non-stock firms, personality traits of neuroticism, extraversion, flexibility (openness to experience), and agreement have a positive and significant effect on tax fraud, and the personality trait of conscientiousness has a negative effect on tax fraud.

 

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