Tax practitioner ethics: An empirical investigation of organizational consequences

A recent study examines whether tax accountants' ethical judgments are influenced by deontological and/or teleological considerations. A cross-section of 418 CPAs who are tax practitioners in supervisory positions read 2 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 and structural equations modeling 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.