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This paper examines citizens' attitudes toward paying taxes – what is sometimes termed their “tax morale” or the intrinsic motivation to pay taxes – focusing on the experience of individuals in the Russian Federation before, during, and after the transition from a planned socialist economy to a market‐based economy.

Micro‐level data for Russia from the World Values Survey and the European Values Survey for the years 1991, 1995, and 1999 are used to estimate the determinants of individuals' attitudes toward paying taxes. The data also allow the examination of the evolution of tax morale in the regions of Russia.

The estimation results show decay in tax morale in the first four years of the transition, and a small recovery in 1999. Significant regional differences in tax morale are also found.

The results are consistent with the relevance of social norms in tax compliance, where the widespread perception of tax evasion and of a corrupt and inefficient state led initially to a decline of tax morale. The results also indicate that the restoration of a higher level of trust in the state, after some progress in the transition to a market economy, positively influenced tax morale.

The results suggest, once tax morale is crowded out, it is difficult for government to raise tax morale very quickly back to previous levels. Doing so requires designing tax systems, tax administrations, and government structures that inspire trust and pride in governmental and legal institutions.

A unique aspect of the analysis is the ability to study tax morale at the individual level before (1991), during (1995), and shortly after (1999) the Russian transition.

Corruption prevails in societies and systems, but it is because of the individuals and officials who practice it. It is individuals’ characteristics, attitudes, views and choices that spur them to act ethically or not. This study aims to investigate whether beliefs, values and behavior vary across countries in perspective of bribery and tax cheating.

This study used Order Logistic Regression on microlevel data from World Values Survey wave VI (2010–2014) for 58 countries to find factors of tax cheating and accepting bribes.

This study revealed some interesting findings while comparing upper-income countries and lower- and middle-income countries. Justifiability for accepting bribe is negatively affected by age, patriotism, interest in politics, university education while positively affected by employment and income. Justifiability for cheating on taxes is negatively affected by confidence in justice system, interest in politics and marital status while positively affected by income, patriotism, confidence in political parties and good health. This study finds some valuable insights to the policymakers to device policy to overcome financial corruption and its acceptability in the masses.

This paper fills the literature gap by adding a wide range of variables related to demography, socioeconomic status, trust on political, judicial and government institutes, well-being, patriotism and religiosity. Moreover, this paper compares the behaviors of a wide range of countries that include both developed and developing economies.