A Qualitative Inquiry on the Perspective of Tax Practitioners on Corporate Social Responsibility and Taxation

Abstract

Prior research indicated that Corporate Social Responsibility (“CSR”) and taxation is an issue of sustainability, ethics, morality, corporate culture, and corporate governance. The tax decisions of an organization affect a wide range of stakeholders including the government, employees, and the community. Despite this, the link between corporate taxation and CSR is poorly understood. We conducted a qualitative inquiry by interviewing tax practitioners for their perspectives, experiences, and understanding of taxation and CSR. We sampled tax practitioners from the target population of tax practitioners for corporate clients. We gained valuable insight on tax practitioners’ perspective on the link between CSR and taxation, including their inability to define CSR. This contributed to their failure to discuss CSR with clients.