Revenge from jilted lovers, business partners can be the motivator
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When someone reports tax fraud to the authorities it may be due to a sense of duty or morals. The again it could be down to revenge.
A study by Portland State University considered almost 12,000 whistleblowers who reported tax fraud in the US in 2017.
It found that, revenge is often disguised as moral obligation and there are also financial benefits to the whistleblower.
"People with a revenge motive justify their decision as moral obligation when they plan to blow the whistle on a colleague for tax fraud. They most likely feel better about reporting someone because it's their 'moral duty' rather than for a more negative reason, such as revenge," said PSU’s School of Business accounting professor Cass Hausserman who led the research.
The study found that those with a cash incentive were 28% more likely to report tax fraud than those without while those with a revenge motive were 25% more likely to.
However, moral obligation remains the most compelling driver of whistleblowing and resulted in a 1.5 to 2 times increase in whistleblowing than a financial incentive alone.
The study is published in the March edition of the Journal of Economic Psychology and its co-authors include Jonathan Farrar from Ryerson University and Morina Rennie from University of Regina.
