Crossing Borders, Sharing Burdens

Tax matters. It structures our societies, influences our choices, and reflects our values. Yet the meaning and impact of taxation are constantly changing in step with a world marked by climate transitions, demographic shifts, digitalisation, globalisation, and migration.

This open access book addresses critical questions surrounding attitudes to tax and tax compliance through the lens of ‘fiscal belonging,’ demonstrating the value of qualitative approaches to tax research. It explores the lived experience of immigrants to the UK, and how feelings of belonging, exclusion, reciprocity, and obligation shape their encounters with the tax system. The book illuminates the many different facets of fiscal belonging, including the right to work and access to employment, as well as histories of colonialism and the economic history of different communities on a national scale. By foregrounding personal narratives and the complexity of social worlds, this book argues for more methodologically diverse and inclusive approaches to understanding why people do, or do not, pay tax. It will be of interest to scholars across disciplines, as well as tax professionals working in business, consultancy, and public administration.

Lotta Björklund Larsen holds a PhD in Social Anthropology, Stockholm University. “Why we pay tax, why we avoid doing so and how we are made to pay tax” are questions that bring to fore people’s relation to state, community, and fellow citizens. Through her ethnographic research she has examined epistemologies that shapes tax compliance, engaging with tax authorities, corporate and individual taxpayers, as well as tax avoiders.

Lynne Oats is Emeritus Professor of Taxation, University of Exeter. Her research interests focus on taxation as a social and institutional practice, embracing historical and contemporary tax policy both nationally and internationally. Lynne draws on insights from sociology, law and politics in her research and is motivated by curiosity about all things tax related, from eighteenth century newspaper stamp duty to the current taxation of multinationals and everything in between.