CEO Psychology and Corporate Tax Aggressiveness: Expert-Based Qualitative Evidence from Morocco

This study investigates the impact of CEO psychological traits on aggressive corporate tax behavior. It draws insight from stakeholders like auditors, tax administrators, and psychological experts in order to dive into the intricate relationship between managerial psychology and corporate tax strategy. It mobilizes the relevant literature, particularly upper echelon theory and agency theory, in order to uncover the main traits that affect this behavior and the other factors that shape this relationship. We analyzed the corpus using NVIVO software for textual analysis in order to find emerging themes and consensus among the interviewees. Three main thematic clusters were found: (1) psychological drivers, (2) cognitive processes, and (3) contextual factors. They explain how the decision to engage in tax aggressiveness is shaped through a process consisting of initial psychological traits, a process of rationalization that solidifies it and contextual factors. These results offer practical insights for the tax administration to incorporate these elements as variables in its risk assessment systems and machine learning models, enabling it to more effectively target tax fraud and evasion.