Tax education: literature review

Abstract

In this article we clarify the difference between the concepts of taxpayers education, fiscal literacy and tax knowledge, in which the first is more embracing and includes the remaining two. Fiscal literacy is an important attribute in order to develop citizen tax awareness, that it may be a tax culture and for living in tax citizenship. Throughout the article, we carried out a literature review focused on tax education programs. Thus, we present briefly a set of several countries in initiatives that, in general, the Tax Authority is largely responsible for the creation and implementation of programs, which may act independently or in partnership with other organizations and institutions. As a rule, these take into account the specificity of the context in which each country and their needs. We found that since the 50’s, the United States was developing its tax education program. Between 1950 and 1960, Europe began to show concern over this matter, having been the Nordic countries pioneers in creating effective taxpayers education programs, notably Denmark and Sweden. However, the highlight program in Europe is the "Red Box ", held in the UK. Compared to most European countries, Portugal started later, only in 2007. In Latin America, these initiatives are more recent, telling some of these countries with the financial support of institutions such as the BID, UNESCO e UNICEF.