Tax Practitioner Ethics: An Empirical Investigation of Organizational Consequences.

This study examines whether tax accountants' ethical judgments are influenced by deontological (essential characteristics of the behavior) and/or teleological (consequences of the behavior) considerations. Prior business ethics research is extended by applying the Hunt-Vitell theory of ethics model to tax professionals. A cross- section of 418 CPAs who are tax practitioners in supervisory positions read two scenarios containing ethical/unethical behaviors and answered questions about (1) how ethical/unethical they believed the behaviors to be and (2) the extent that they were inclined to encourage/reprimand the behaviors. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and structural equations modeling (LISREL) were used to examine descriptive statistics and the theoretical relationships among variables. The results suggest that tax supervisors' ethical judgments are dependent on both deontological and teleological considerations. The experimental design and results, which are consistent with previous use of the Hunt-Vitell model, provide insights that are relevant for tax practitioners and future ethics research in taxation.