Despite the fact that covid-19 has promoted card payments to the detriment of cash - which in the worst moments of the pandemic involved a physical contact dangerous to health -
70% of Spaniards
believe that this has not been enough to avoid an
increase in fraud.
According to the study 'Opinions and fiscal attitudes of Spaniards in 2020' prepared by the
Institute of Fiscal Studies
, attached to the Ministry of Finance, seven out of ten Spaniards believe that fraud activity has increased due to the pandemic: 40% consider that it has increased somewhat, while 30% believe that it has grown a lot.
This represents a
change in trend
compared to recent years.
Between 2008 and 2017, the Treasury observed that more and more people thought that tax fraud was increasing, but since 2017 there has been a decrease and the number of Spaniards who think that there is less and less fraud is increasing.
In 2020, however, it returns to figures similar to 2008.
"Most of the citizens consider that
tax fraud has been a constant in the last decade
, as highlighted not only by the historical series, but also by the data obtained in this Barometer", explains the Institute.
According to the study, all groups believe that the
underground economy
is growing and are convinced that "there are certain groups that regularly and systematically defraud the Public Treasury" such as "
businessmen
, liberal professionals and self-
employed
workers
."
It is curious that it is the entrepreneurs surveyed by the Institute who consider that they themselves are the ones who defraud the most, something that the organization describes as "
self-criticism
".
"Those groups who are attributed a more dishonest tax behavior show a certain degree of self-criticism. As has already been seen,
55% of those surveyed attribute dishonest tax behavior to the business group
, with the rest of the mentions being distributed among the others groups. Being more than half of the group of interviewed businessmen who think that it is their group that disappoints the most (self-criticism awareness) ", they point out.
25% justify the existence of fraud
The
dishonesty and civic awareness
are the reasons most common in explaining tax fraud by respondents, but also allude to excessive
impunity
of fraudsters or the fact that the
tax burden in Spain "excessive ".
16% believe that "if no tax was paid, we would all live better."
In 2020, ideas such as that the fight against fraud is not effective take a greater role than other editions and it is also striking that almost
one in four
respondents
justifies
the existence of fraud in one way or another.
"This justification tends to be based on a
self-exculpatory argument: it
is the circumstances that force defrauding to get ahead (for 22.8%), rather than on a structural argument: the normal thing is to evade taxes (for 6, 2%) ", they detail.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies also verifies with this report that the majority of citizens think that the
relationship
between
the taxes paid and the services and benefits received
in Spain is
worse
than that existing in other EU countries.
The service that most justifies the payment of taxes continues to be
healthcare
(51%).
At the same time, it is also the service that presents the greatest room for improvement, despite being in its opinion the best managed, with the greatest accessibility and the most appropriate to the taxes that are paid.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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