Taxes and Trust: From Coercion to Compliance in Poland, Russia and Ukraine

Description

Taxes and Trust is the first book on taxes to focus on trust and the first work of social science to concentrate on how tax policy actually gets implemented on the ground in Poland, Russia and Ukraine. It highlights the nuances of the transitional Ukraine case and explains precisely how and why that 'borderland' country differs from the more ideal-types of coercive Russia and compliance-oriented Poland. Through nine bespoke taxpayer surveys, an unprecedented bureaucratic survey and more than fifteen years of qualitative research, the book emphasizes the building and accumulation of trust to transition from a coercive tax state to a compliant one. The context of the book will appeal to students and scholars of taxation worldwide and to those who study Russia and Eastern Europe. This title is also available as Open Access.

Marc P. Berenson is a senior lecturer at King's Russia Institute, King's College London. He has undertaken consultancy work for the World Bank in Russia and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Tax and Development Programme. After receiving his B.A. from Harvard University, Massachusetts, he founded and directed the 'Law in Action' program for Freedom House in Ukraine, before receiving his Ph.D. in Political Science from Princeton University, New Jersey, in 2006.

'Taxes and Trust is an outstanding book. Combining extensive field research, surveys and a deep knowledge of how tax administration works in Poland, Russia and the Ukraine, Berenson offers insights that go far beyond tax and tax compliance. Taxes and Trust teaches us that effective governance requires both administrative efficiency and procedural justice.' Sven Steinmo, Robert Schuman Professor, European University Institute, Florence 'Taxes and Trust is an impressive piece of scholarship. It is empirically and theoretically ambitious, and the product of many years of thinking, researching and analyzing patterns in tax compliance in three important Eastern European cases ... Research like this is rare.' Hilary Appel, Claremont McKenna College 'Berenson's Taxes and Trust merits status as a major contribution on an important topic of post-communist political economy. There is much to be learned that is new in this study. The book will also be of value to comparative taxation and political economy specialists more generally.' Gerald M. Easter, Canadian Slavonic Papers