Introduction to tax and trust

In this chapter we introduce a major topical challenge facing tax authorities: developing tax systems in a rapidly changing environment that are founded on trust without giving up the possibility to use power to have taxpayers pay their taxes due. In order to contextualize the importance of the challenge to generate and maintain conditional trust, some literature is reviewed that deals with the consequences and determinants of trust and trustworthiness for taxation and tax compliance. From this review it can be derived that to some extent public trust can be ‘earned’ by appropriate interaction between taxpayers and tax authorities, by applying the right instruments matching the causes of (non-)compliance and by building the institutional capacity that enables the adjustment to a rapidly changing internal and external environment. The contributions to this volume offer reflections on the role played by institutions, interactions and instruments in the intricate relation between tax and trust.

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