In the project, tax morality is understood as the norms of tax payment, which aim to prevent deviant behaviour by individuals and which must be constantly renegotiated. Accordingly, the project examines the discourses surrounding honest tax payment between the Second World War and the 1980s, specifically in the three sample countries of West Germany, Spain and the USA. Who expressed their views on the subject and how, and what interests did those involved pursue? How were the norms of taxpaying, i.e. tax morality, repeatedly renegotiated? What narratives of taxpaying developed under very different economic, political and cultural conditions? What determined whether a narrative could prevail in the public debate that explained tax evasion or avoidance as self-defence of the citizen against completely excessive state demands - or one that portrayed tax evaders as criminals who endangered the greater good?

Answers to the historian's questions can be found in a wide variety of source genres, from newspaper articles to television discussion panels, from the statement of a church representative to a party programme, from an economic model to a lecture by a lobby representative, from teaching material on tax education to a tax guidebook. How did the norms of tax payment develop in public discourse in the early Federal Republic of Germany, in Spain under Franco and after the transition to democracy, and in the USA during the Cold War? A historical understanding of the development is indispensable for analysing current challenges in the field of tax morality.

The project is sponsored by the DFG as part of the Heisenberg Programme from 2018-2025.