Tax Compliance and Conditional Cooperation: A Study Based on the Dense Social Trust of Young People

Abstract

Most research exploring the effect of trust on tax compliance focuses on institutional trust or diluted trust. In contrast, the role of dense social trust has been scarcely investigated, even less through rigorous empirical contrasts that determine the potential causal relationship between this type of trust and tax compliance. This paper contributes to this line of research, providing empirical evidence in this regard. Based on a sample of 2059 young university students, and using a structural equation model, we conclude that the behaviors and attitudes towards tax fraud and the economy that occur in the family potentially influence young people’s fiscal awareness.

1. Introduction

Tax compliance is a basic condition for a tax system to be considered efficient, equitable and fair. Correct tax behavior is a symptom, and at the same time a consequence, of a solid civic conscience [1]. Non-compliance, on the other hand, reduces both public revenues and the availability of public services, discriminating against honest taxpayers [2]. In this sense, “intrinsic motivation”, defined as the inherent traits that drive individuals to pay their taxes, also known as their tax morale [3,4,5], is an essential factor in the fight against fraud, and its construction a fundamental strategy in the empowerment of voluntary tax compliance. Fiscal awareness, in turn, is described as the individual perception that each citizen has in relation to the tax ethics and tax morality of the society in which he or she lives, and which leads to voluntary compliance with his or her tax obligations [6].

Given that people influence other people, and the observation of unethical behavior is “potentially contagious”, since it can change social norms regarding dishonesty [7], the behavior of others can have a notable importance on individual fiscal awareness by forming an influencing factor.

This effect would be aligned with the current prosocial behavior that points out that taxpayers only cooperate conditionally, i.e., that people are willing to comply if others do so [3,8]. The mere knowledge or perception that tax compliance is the most common behavior within the reference community could stimulate conditional cooperation [9,10,11]. Furthermore, an individual may compare their tax payments with those of the individuals they socially interact with [12]. Communication with other taxpayers can alter the perception of the strength of social norms against tax evasion or the perceived prevalence of evasion in their social environment [13,14]. Conversely, the more individuals evade taxes, the weaker the social norm becomes, as it becomes easier for the individual taxpayer to justify their own misconduct to themselves [15]. Thus, there is a social interaction effect whereby people’s behavior is influenced by their group peers. That is, conditional cooperators will adapt their behavior to the respective group they are in, so if other group members shirk contributing, they will also shirk, and if others cooperate, the individual will also cooperate [16].

Since an individual cannot know with certainty whether others comply with their tax obligations, trust plays a crucial role. In this context, the literature distinguishes three types of trust [17]: (i) institutional trust, referring to different political institutions, (ii) diluted or generalized social trust, based on the trust people have towards strangers, and (iii) dense social trust, which encompasses the closest environment, such as family and friendships. In the latter two cases, conditional cooperation plays a particularly relevant role.

When measuring institutional trust, factors such as the perception of corruption or inefficiency in terms of public goods and services are considered. Thus, the greater the trust that people show with respect to their public institutions, the greater their fiscal awareness of them [18,19,20,21]. On the other hand, and with respect to diluted social trust, if a person believes that other taxpayers in society are honest, their predisposition to pay their taxes will increase [5,16,18,22]; while perceiving high tax evasion [3] or suspecting that others are evading their taxes [23] tends to increase the individual propensity to evade.

Finally, dense social trust significantly influences the level of trust we extend toward strangers [24], as it contributes to forming subjective expectations about the trustworthiness of others [25]. Furthermore, interpersonal trust could influence tax-related attitudes and behaviors [26]. Recent studies have indicated that, just as with vertical trust—that is, trust in authorities (see, for example, Gebrihet et al. [27])—horizontal trust, meaning trust among peers, is an important predictor of tax awareness [28,29,30,31,32]. For this reason, the group of people one interacts with in daily life—a group that may be limited to family and relatives but could also include friends, neighbors, or even coworkers—emerges as an important field of study [33,34]. Additionally, previous research exploring whether the impact on contributors’ compliance is conditional is scarce [35]. This becomes more acute if we consider that most of the studies that relate tax compliance with conditional cooperation have focused on diluted social trust [5,16,18,22], marginalizing the effect of dense social trust, i.e., that which refers to the closest environment. However, if the literature has shown that the behavior of individuals we do not know can affect our tax compliance [5,16,18,22], it is not illogical to think that the behavior of those around us in our daily lives—such as our closest family and friends—could have an even greater impact on our fiscal awareness.

Nowadays, and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, only a few studies have examined the intergenerational or familial link in tax evasion behavior [36,37,38,39]. Thus, the aim is not only to answer the intergenerational question of whether young individuals are more likely to evade taxes if their parents were tax evaders, but also to explore whether parental tax evasion potentially causes tax noncompliance among their children. Therefore, this paper aims to take a step forward by providing empirical evidence in this regard. Our paper aims to fill the gap in the literature by building on conditional cooperation theory [3] and investigating how dense social trust relates to and potentially influences tax compliance. The paper is structured as follows. First, a brief review of the literature on dense social trust and its possible relationships with tax compliance is conducted. Subsequently, an exploratory study is proposed, detailing the objectives, the hypotheses, the sample used, the variables and the models, and concluding with the results obtained. Finally, the conclusions are presented, which summarize the most relevant aspects of the research carried out.

2. Brief Review of the Literature

There is a certain relationship between an individual’s community and his personal willingness to fulfill his common obligations, such as paying taxes [40]. According to social psychology, observational learning plays a relevant role in the formation of attitudes [41], since people observe the behavior of their peers to determine what is acceptable, reasonable, or expected in their social environment [42].

The influence of social norms on tax compliance occurs largely through internalization as personal norms [43]. In this sense, people’s reference groups, such as their parents at early ages or their colleagues and friends throughout their development, provide them with criteria to form their attitudes and behaviors [44]. These groups, in turn, exert two essential functions in the process of attitude formation and change: (i) a comparative function, since the individual uses his reference group as a point of comparison to evaluate both himself and others, and (ii) a normative function, since the group imposes a set of norms to be followed and applies informal sanctions to those who deviate from these norms [45].

If a taxpayer knows that many people are important to him or her—such as family members, friends, and coworkers—evade taxes, his or her commitment to tax compliance will be weaker [46]. Sutherland’s differential association theory points out that the learning of all behavioral patterns—both deviant and more conventional behavior—is a process that is learned from interactions with other people and, mainly, within primary groups, i.e., groups formed by close interpersonal relationships, particularly peer groups [47]. In this context, the family, as one of the main agents of socialization, plays a fundamental role in transmitting moral, social, and ethical values [48,49,50]. The role models that parents show to their offspring facilitate the learning of such behaviors [51]. For example, it is difficult to learn the value of tolerance and solidarity without experience of tolerant role models [52].

Although tax fraud is primarily an individual decision, it is also subject to significant social influence, mainly from reference groups, whose intensity and direction of this influence can transform a taxpayer’s honest intentions into fraudulent intentions [45]. Family ties, both in childhood and in adult life, are essential to a person’s personal and emotional identity. Through imitation, individuals learn behaviors, norms, attitudes, prejudices and values from the family in what is called the “primary socialization process” [52,53]. This process shapes people as adults within a society that molds them in a certain way [54]. Subsequently, the “secondary socialization process” takes place, which involves the influence of other contexts, such as the school, the neighborhood, and other social groups, in the development and shaping of the attitudes and behaviors of individuals. However, although individuals can change groups relatively easily, changing attitudes or behaviors learned in the family is more difficult [55].

Thus, certain variables that have traditionally been considered when studying tax compliance could have a significant impact that would be transmitted, for example, from parents to their offspring in this primary socialization process. In this sense, the literature points out that self-employed taxpayers tend to evade more taxes than the rest [56,57], showing lower tax morale [22].

Likewise, a higher educational level is related to greater fiscal awareness and an increased propensity to reject tax fraud [6,58]; while income level is negatively correlated with the rejection of tax fraud [59], and a greater number of members comprising a household could be positively related to greater fiscal awareness as solidarity relationships come into play.

3. Theoretical Model and Hypotheses

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that there is a potential causal relationship between individuals’ dense social trust and their fiscal consciousness based on conditional cooperation theory. As has been pointed out, the literature affirms that individuals, through imitation, can learn from their reference groups both certain attitudes and values and certain behavioral behaviors.

Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H1. 

Dense social trust influences fiscal awareness.

However, these variables could be influenced by other relationships studied in the literature. Therefore, and with the aim of measuring these possible effects, the following secondary hypotheses are presented:

H2. 

If parents are self-employed, the fiscal awareness of their daughters and sons is lower.

H3. 

If parents have university studies, the fiscal awareness of their daughters and sons is higher.

H4. 

The higher the household income, the lower the individuals’ fiscal awareness.

H5. 

The more family members there are, the higher the individuals’ fiscal awareness.

H6. 

The higher the perception that the fight against tax fraud is effective, the higher the fiscal awareness.

H7. 

More dense social trust increases the perception that the fight against tax fraud is effective.

H8. 

If parents are self-employed, their children’s perception of the effectiveness of the fight against tax fraud is lower.

To contrast these hypotheses, a conceptual model or sequence diagram (Figure 1) proposed for such confirmatory analysis is presented in which two latent variables are found: fiscal awareness and dense social trust. The first of these has been constructed through two observable variables: the rejection of the tax fraud and the perception of the common good, while for the second, we have used the observed variables that allude to the family’s tolerance of tax fraud and the underground economy.

4. Sample and Measurement of the Variables

Given that the sample required to test these hypotheses is not available in the databases traditionally used for this type of study (CIS, World Values Survey, Instituto de Estudios Fiscales, etc.), it was decided to use a database of young university students with notions of taxation, as has been done throughout the literature [23,60,61]. While the selection of a non-representative sample always raises doubts and criticisms about the extrapolation of the results, the fact of choosing university students, who have never had experience in benefiting from tax avoidance, plays a key role in the proper identification of the determinants of fiscal awareness [23]. By using a sample with regular taxpayers who can decide whether to evade their taxes or not, their moral determinants are mixed with economic reasons, such as the possibility of being audited, the amount of a possible penalty, etc.

Therefore, and with the aim of eliminating such influence and having a sample selection where the impact of tax evasion behavior is minimized, the use of university students as future taxpayers is justified, since (i) any potential economic benefit of tax evasion is nullified, and (ii) the reliability of each student’s answers on whether or not they consider that defrauding is justified increases [23]. Likewise, to contrast the hypotheses proposed, it was required that subjects (i) were influenced to a large extent by their immediate environment and (ii) were of a similar age and level of education with respect to tax matters and, therefore, were aware of the consequences of defrauding the Public Treasury.

The survey used for this analysis is an adaptation of the survey prepared and used by the Tax Observatory of the University of Murcia since 2006 FOSUM. The Observatory has been conducting annual surveys on tax attitudes and behavior since 2006, both nationally and regionally, and academically, with several published works based on these [6,62,63]. We used microdata from a questionnaire carried out by means of a discretionary or judgmental sample completed between the academic years 2010/2011 and 2023/2024 by a total of 2059 young students of the Spanish Tax System course at the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Murcia, located in the Region of Murcia (Spain).

This region has a population of 1.5 million inhabitants and is home to two public universities. Regarding sociodemographic characteristics, according to the latest available data from the National Statistics Institute [64], 15.5% of the employed population in the Region of Murcia are self-employed, while the remaining 84.5% work as employees. Additionally, concerning the level of education, 44.82% of the population have completed only compulsory education, 11.49% have a high school diploma, 20.56% have vocational training, and 22.64% have a university education. Furthermore, the average household size is 2.74 people, while the average household income is EUR 30,509 per year [64].

Thus, the sample consisted of 1136 female students (55.17%) and 923 male students (44.83%) (

Table 1. Sample.

Academic Year	Total Students	Female Students (N)	Male Students (N)	Female Students (%)	Male Students (%)
2010/2011	156	86	70	55.13	44.87
2011/2012	143	82	61	57.34	42.66
2012/2013	149	77	72	51.68	48.32
2013/2014	153	86	67	56.21	43.79
2014/2015	136	75	61	55.15	44.85
2015/2016	164	91	73	55.49	44.51
2016/2017	152	86	66	56.58	43.42
2017/2018	139	77	62	55.40	44.60
2018/2019	142	76	66	53.52	46.48
2019/2020	148	79	69	53.38	46.62
2020/2021	156	85	71	54.49	45.51
2021/2022	146	85	61	58.22	41.78
2022/2023	133	70	63	52.63	47.37
2023/2024	142	81	61	57.04	42.96
	2.059	1.136	923	55.17	44.83

Source: Developed by the authors.

), of whom 22.9% indicated that both their father and mother had completed university studies, compared to 2.9% who stated that neither of them had completed studies of any kind.

This survey was conducted online through the University of Murcia’s Surveys application right in the middle of the academic year, anonymously and providing a neutral instruction, which would have reduced the social desirability of the responses. Its completion implied an increase in the students’ grade in the subject through a code that dissociated the student from the survey, so that during the academic years mentioned, 100% of the students answered it during the two weeks that the survey was available.

Thus, this sample is representative of the population of university students in the field of Economics and Business Studies, i.e., the population of university students with some knowledge of taxation.

Table 2. Descriptive statistics of the main variables.

	Comments	Mean	Median	Standard Deviation	Median Absolute Deviation (MAD)
Fiscal awareness
Unjustified Fraud	2.059	0.29	0.00	0.455	0.00
Common Good	2.059	0.60	1.00	0.490	0.00
Dense social trust
Tax Fraud (Family)	2.059	3.03	2.00	2.825	2.00
Informal Economy (Family)	2.059	3.81	4.00	2.916	2.00
Fight against tax fraud
Effectiveness of the fight against fraud	2.059	6.04	6.00	1.824	1.00
Educational level of parents	2.059	0.55	1.00	0.497	0.00
Education (Mother)	2.059	3.02	3.00	0.837	1.00
Education (Father)	2.059	3.01	3.00	0.868	1.00
Education (Parents)	2.059	5.88	6.00	1.653	1.00
Employment status of parents
Self-Employed (Mother)	2.059	0.12	0.00	0.331	0.00
Self-Employed (Father)	2.059	0.27	0.00	0.444	0.00
Self-Employed (Parents)	2.059	0.39	0.00	0.624	0.00
Household members
Household	2.059	4.05	4.00	1.146	1.00
Family income
Family Income	2.059	2.57	2.00	1.041	1.00

Source: Developed by the authors.

presents the descriptive statistics of the variables used in the estimation of the econometric models, with the mean and median as statistics of central tendency, and the standard deviation and median absolute deviation as statistics of dispersion.

(a) 

Fiscal awareness

For its measurement, two items previously used in the literature on tax compliance were considered: justification of tax fraud [58,59] and predisposition to the common good [62,63]. Thus, the questions asked by the respondents were as follows: P20. Indicate to what extent you agree or disagree with the following statement: Tax fraud is not justifiable under any circumstances, being 1 totally disagree and 10 totally agree. Q15. In your opinion, which of these two behaviors would be more reprehensible? (1). Someone fails to pay 6000 € to the Treasury; (2). You are robbed of 100 €. (In Q15, the first option was coded with a 1, and the second with a 0).

(b) 

Dense social trust

Tolerance towards tax fraud is a clear indicator of low fiscal awareness. Thus, if children trust their parents and believe that they act correctly yet observe behaviors such as tolerance for tax evasion and the informal economy, they might interpret these tolerances as positive, thereby exhibiting, in this case, a reduced fiscal awareness. To investigate this aspect, two questions have been introduced: Q31. On a scale of 0 to 10, where the value 0 is not at all tolerant and the value 10 is very tolerant, do you consider that your family is tolerant towards tax fraud? Q29. On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is totally disagree and 10 is totally agree, indicate to what extent do you agree with the following statement: my family tolerates the underground economy. In this way, it is assumed that those families that tolerate tax fraud and the underground economy influence their children by showing them inadequate values, causing them to show less fiscal awareness.

(c) 

Fight against tax fraud

Likewise, and as in previous works [65,66], the perception of effectiveness with respect to the fight against tax fraud has been contemplated. For this reason, the survey contains the following question: Q27. Rate from 1 to 10 the effectiveness of the tax administration in the fight against fraud, with 1 being not at all effective and 10 being very effective.

(d) 

Educational level of parents

On the other hand, we asked about the level of education of the father and mother, where the respondent could indicate whether their parents had no education (value 1), had a primary education (value 2) or secondary education or vocational training (value 3), or had completed university studies (value 4); it is expected that those young people whose parents have a higher level of education will show greater fiscal awareness, having been educated in these values. Likewise, both variables were coded in the variable parental studies, where in order to reflect the level of studies in the home, both variables were added, so that this variable ranges between a value of 2 if both parents have no education, and a value of 8 if both have completed university studies.

(e) 

Employment status of parents

As previously noted, the literature indicates that self-employed taxpayers tend to evade more taxes than others [56,57], demonstrating lower tax morale [22]. For this reason, and regarding the employment status of the father and/or mother, this variable has been coded with a value of 1 if the father or mother was self-employed, and 0 in the opposite case, that is, being employed, retired, or a pensioner, assuming responsibility for the main task of household chores, being a student, or being unemployed. Similarly, the variable self-employed has been created, which takes the value 0 if both parents are not self-employed, 1 if one of them is, and 2 if both parents are self-employed.

(f) 

Household members and family income

A variable is also included that refers to the number of members in the household (as is the case in other research, such as that of Dörrenberg and Peichl [67]) and the level of family income. To control these effects, the respondent was asked the following questions: Q48. How many members make up your household? Q49. Please indicate how much income your family unit has per month: less than 1240 euros, between 1240 and 2300 euros, between 2300 and 3340 euros, or more than 3340 euros. This last question was adapted to the standard of living in each of the countries where the questionnaire was completed, and coded in such a way that the first answer took a value of 1, the second a value of 2, the third a value of 3, and the fourth and final a value of 4.

5. Results and Discussion

Prior to carrying out the structural analysis and confirming that the proposed conceptual model is adequate and that the hypotheses proposed are fulfilled, it is necessary to perform a series of tests and to bear in mind certain criteria regarding the measurement model. Thus, the results obtained in the convergent validity test regarding the measurement model after performing a confirmatory factor analysis are presented below. This procedure and the confirmation of the structural model was carried out using the IBM^® SPSS^® Amos 24.0.0 software package. To check the convergent validity, the following three criteria proposed by [68] were used: the reliability of the items of each construct (factor loading), the average variance extracted (VPE), and the reliability of the construct. Using the fit indices suggested by Fornell and Larcker [69] and Hair et al. [68] to assess model adequacy—factor loadings >0.5; SPV >0.5; construct reliability >0. 6 (

Table 3. Convergent validity.

	(1) Factorial Loading Est. Li	(2) VPE		(3) Reliability of Construct
		Li2	Indicator	∑Li	(∑Li)2	ei Estimate	∑ei	Indicator
Fiscal awareness	-	-	0.197	0.861	0.741	-	1.605	0.316
Common Good	0.321	0.103	-	-	-	0.897	-	-
Unjustified Fraud	0.540	0.292	-	-	-	0.708	-	-
Dense social trust	-	-	0.676	1.351	1.825	-	1.070	0.631
Tax Fraud (Family)	0.770	0.593	-	-	-	0.407	-	-
Informal Economy (Family)	0.581	0.338	-	-	-	0.662	-	-

Source: Developed by the authors.

)—the latent variable referring to dense social trust meets all three criteria, the factor loads of the variable referring to the underground economy is very close to the appropriate value, and fiscal awareness does not meet criteria 2 and 3.

Therefore, and after failing to meet the convergent validity criteria, it was decided not to use this latent variable, using instead the rejection of tax fraud as a proxy for fiscal awareness, as in other studies [58,59].

Thus, once the reliability and convergent validity had been ratified—it was not necessary to perform the divergent or discriminant validity, since we finally had a single construct—it was considered appropriate to perform the structural equation model using a maximum likelihood covariance method, and the results of this model are shown in

Table 4. Final model coefficients.

	Bj	bj	SE	t	p
Dense social trust → Fiscal awareness	−0.260	−0.070	0.008	−8.558	0.000
Self-employed (parents) → Fiscal awareness	−0.048	−0.035	0.016	−2.166	0.030
Education (parents) → Fiscal awareness	−0.050	−0.014	0.006	−2.252	0.024
Family income → Fiscal awareness	−0.003	−0.001	0.010	−0.145	0.884
Household → Fiscal awareness	0.038	0.015	0.009	1.705	0.088
Effectiveness of the Fight Against Fraud → Fiscal awareness	0.075	0.019	0.006	3.366	0.000
Dense social trust → Effectiveness of the fight against fraud	−0.080	−0.085	0.030	−2.821	0.005
Self-employed (parents) → Effectiveness of the fight against fraud	−0.002	−0.006	0.066	−0.091	0.927

Note: B_j = standardized coefficients for each construct; b_j = unstandardized coefficients for each construct; SE = standard error; t = critical ratio = b_j/ET = statistical test of the significance of each construct. Source: developed by the authors.

.

The p-value indicates the level of statistical significance of the estimators, and the results are shown in Figure 2, where the solid arrows denote the hypotheses that are met, and the dashed arrows denote the hypotheses that are not met, and the results of the t test are included in parentheses.

Five estimators appear to be significant, demonstrating, based on the available data, that tolerance to tax fraud and the family’s underground economy potentially and negatively influence the individual’s fiscal awareness (H1, p < 0.001), as proposed following the conditional cooperation model based on dense social trust. Therefore, not only is there a negative relationship between the family’s tolerance of tax fraud and the shadow economy and the individual’s own fiscal awareness, but also, this relationship implies potential causality. This strong relationship between individuals’ family environment and their tax behavior aligns with previous studies that indicated how parental noncompliance increases tax noncompliance among their children [36,37,38]. It is also consistent with other research suggesting that parental criminality is one of the strongest predictors of criminal activity in the next generation [70,71]. This relationship holds true for both serious crimes (such as violent crime) and minor offenses or unlawful behavior, such as drunk driving [72]. Therefore, as noted by Marè et al. [39], moral values can be transmitted essentially (though not exclusively) from families to their heirs, potentially remaining stable, at least within a given period of time.

Similarly, the fact that the family tolerates such attitudes causes the subject to perceive the efficiency of the fight against tax fraud as less effective (H7, p < 0.01), the latter potentially implying, in turn, a lower fiscal awareness of the individual (H6, p < 0.001). Likewise, and as expected, a greater number of members in the household results in greater fiscal awareness of the individual (H5, p < 0.1), with the opposite effect occurring when the parents are employed (H2, p < 0.05).

The level of parental education, on the other hand, shows an unexpected negative relationship (H3, p < 0.05). While most studies show a positive relationship [17,73], some research suggests that more educated individuals may be less tax-compliant, because they have greater access to information and better means to understand the possibilities of not complying with current tax legislation [22], and they understand better the opportunities to engage in tax evasion [57,73] than less educated individuals.

On the other hand, the hypotheses that allude to the influence of family income (H4) on the individual’s fiscal awareness, and on the possible effect, if parents are self-employed, on their children’s perception of the efficiency of the fight against tax fraud (H8), have not been satisfactorily tested.

As for the goodness-of-fit indicators, the CFI value is 0.546; while the GFI is 0.946, and the RMSEA is 0.090. Although the first two values are considered acceptable if they are greater than 0.9 and the third is between 0.05 and 0.08 [68], except for the first—which is the most demanding indicator—it could be concluded that the hypothetical model fits the empirical data adequately.

As a result of the results obtained, and given that the family nucleus has a decisive influence on the socialization of individuals, it can be affirmed that parents who show inadequate behavior or attitudes towards their tax obligations—consciously or unconsciously—are not only setting a bad example to their children, but are also directly influencing their future behavior towards the tax authorities, thus transmitting from generation to generation attitudes of being opposed to paying taxes and generating an expansive effect in their circle of relations.

However, these results, as with most studies in the social sciences, should be interpreted with caution due to the various limitations of the study. It is important to bear in mind that, in the first place, the results of this research can only be extrapolated to young university students with some training in taxation, since the sample was selected on the basis of that profile; therefore, they would not be extrapolable to young non-university students or to university students with degrees other than those of that faculty, or to adults with an older age profile. Regarding the measurement of the construct, it is important to remember that we are measuring a variable that is not observable through this one, and this is only an approximation. Likewise, this construct has been measured based on two indicators, although it is advisable to use at least three of these.

6. Conclusions

Although several studies have focused their attention on the relationship between diluted and institutional social trust and tax compliance [5,16,18,19,20,21,22], the study of the effect and impact of dense social trust on tax compliance is an unexplored field.

Through the present exploratory study and based on a sample of 2059 young students of Economics from the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Murcia, after carrying out a structural equation model, it has been concluded that behaviors and attitudes towards tax fraud and the family’s participation in the underground economy potentially influence individuals’ fiscal awareness.

In addition, other variables related to the family context, such as whether the parents are employed or not, their level of education, and the number of members in the household, would also have an influence on their predisposition to comply with taxes. Thus, through imitation, young people can learn from their families about both certain attitudes and certain behavioral values, so that a greater or lesser predisposition of the other members of the family in relation to the payment of taxes could influence their attitudes towards paying taxes.

However, special attention should be given to the unexpected negative effect of parents’ educational level on their children’s tax awareness. While individuals with higher education levels may exhibit lower tax awareness due to the composition of the sample, there could be other factors not captured in the questionnaire that are influencing this effect. For example, beyond knowing the highest level of education attained, it would be important to consider both the type of education the parents have and whether they have any training in tax-related matters. Many individuals possess a better understanding of taxation despite having studied for fewer years than others, as it might occur among those with a vocational degree in administration compared with those holding a degree in medicine [74].

Moreover, since the sample was collected over a 14-year period, specifically between the academic years 2010/2011 and 2023/2024, the potential impact of the economic crises experienced in Spain between the periods 2008–2013 and 2020–2021 was not considered. Economic hardships can pressure individuals into tax fraud as a means of survival. In fact, Bitzenis and Vlachos [75] demonstrated for Greece that peer effects and social influences have a lesser impact on the level of tax awareness during an economic depression. Additionally, parents’ marital status could influence their own tax awareness and, consequently, the effect it has on their children. According to certain studies, married individuals tend to have a higher tax morale [76,77], whereas divorced individuals are the least opposed to tax evasion [78].

Finally, various studies indicate that individuals’ tax morale varies significantly across regions depending on population [17,58], economic agglomeration and infrastructure [79]. Future studies must consider these aspects when designing a new questionnaire that allows researchers to control for these variables.

However, just as habits can be acquired to control basic impulses, it is also possible to learn to control the selfishness and lack of solidarity that lie behind fraudulent behaviors [1]. Therefore, and in this sense, tax education could be a good strategy to break the vicious circle of such behavioral patterns, since today’s young people will be parents in the future, and they could transmit to their children more civic behaviors oriented to tax compliance. Given that tax education contributes to changing social behavior with respect to tolerance of fraud and reduces the potential for tax evasion, the best tool to combat such tolerance—in addition to the direct fight against tax fraud itself—is tax education [20,80,81].

The literature highlights that a high level of tax knowledge influences taxpayer compliance, underscoring the importance of strengthening education in this area [82,83,84,85]. A greater level of tax education facilitates the understanding of fairness in the tax system [86,87] and can foster more positive attitudes toward taxation [88]. Moreover, it is considered one of the most influential factors affecting tax compliance [89,90]. Thus, public administrations could, in principle, enhance individuals’ tax awareness and, consequently, increase voluntary tax compliance—leading to higher tax revenues—by promoting civic and tax education.

As stated previously, this study focuses on young people because their attitudes are less influenced by economic incentives than adults’ attitudes regarding tax compliance. It is not our intention to generalize our results to adults. However, it is unclear if the results can be extrapolated to young individuals of any university in Spain or to young people who do not attend universities. The external validity of the results must be determined in future studies with more diverse samples. Therefore, the evidence must be considered as exploratory, but it is sound enough to motivate further research involving wider groups of young people in the country.

In addition, other lines of inquiry for future advancement in researching the effects of dense trust on tax compliance must contemplate obtaining information from the circles closest to the subjects besides the family, such as friends and coworkers, and collecting variables from the individual’s family environment that could influence their propensity to pay taxes, such as the parents’ study majors, their political ideology, and if they have been audited by the tax authorities or not.