European Journal zyxwvuts of Political Research zyxwvut 13 ( 1985) zyxwvu 265-282 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.. Amsterdam - Printed in the Netherlands Public Support for zyx Tax Evasion: Self-interest or Symbolic Politics?* OLA LISTHAUG University of Trondheim, Norway and ARTHUR H. MILLER University of Iowa, United States ABSTRACT The literature suggests two major theoretical explanations for public resistance to taxation. The first emphasizes a cognitive, instrumental, utility-maximizing response to objective elements of taxation and government spending. The second treats contemporary tax revolts as the result of more enduring ideological predispositions. disaffection from politics in general and the result of social mobilization by anti-government protagonists. In this article we confront the self-interest model and the symbolic politics model with empirical evidence at both the aggregate level and at the micro-level. In the macro-analysis we examine the relationship between the level of taxation and the acceptance of tax cheating in twelve Western nations; in the micro-analysis we perform a more detailed study of Norway, employing survey data. The over-all results clearly show the strongest support for the symbolic politics model, while the self-interest explanation is only weakly supported by the data. An important finding is that political attitudes and values have their strongest and most consistent impact among the politically uninvolved. This result further substantiates the symbolic politics model. The imposition and collection of taxes are critical functions of government. Without the ability to collect revenues any government, regardless of its form, would soon find it impossible to provide the services necessary to secure the general welfare. In recent years, as the scope of government increased, so did the amount of taxes governments collected. Rose (1984, 108) tells us that ' . . . everywhere in the *This article is a revised version of a paper presented to the Workshop on The Politics of Taxation, European Consortium for Political Research, Joint Session of Workshops, University of Salzburg, Austria. April 1984. Arthur H. Miller gratefully acknowledges that he was on a Fulbright Fellowship to the University of Trondheim. Sociology Department, when this paper was written. We also wish to acknowledge the research assistance of Torbjsrn Kanestrsm and Hans Terje Mysen. The data from the international study were made available to zyxwvu us by Gordon Heald of Gallup, London, and Florence Rosenberg and Edward Sullivan of CARA. Washington, DC. 265 0304-4130/85/$03.30 @ 1985 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.