Exploring Ethical Competence as a Moderator of Ethical Perception’s Impact on Students’ Attitudes toward Tax Avoidance
Tax avoidance represents a critical area of inquiry in accounting education because it raises ethical dilemmas that challenge students to develop strong moral foundations. Future accounting professionals are expected not only to master technical taxation knowledge but also to cultivate ethical perception and competence to make principled judgments when faced with tax-related decisions. This study aims to examine how ethical perception influences accounting students’ attitudes toward tax avoidance and whether ethical competence moderates this relationship. A quantitative research approach was applied using the Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis technique. Data were collected from 349 accounting students in Semarang, Indonesia, selected through purposive sampling to ensure respondents possessed prior exposure to ethics and taxation coursework. The results reveal that ethical perception significantly and negatively affects students’ attitudes toward tax avoidance. This indicates that the higher the ethical awareness of students, the less likely they are to justify or engage in tax avoidance practices, even when such practices are legally permissible. Conversely, the moderating effect of ethical competence on the relationship between ethical perception and tax avoidance was found to be insignificant. This suggests that ethical competence, while important as an individual trait, does not strengthen the influence of ethical perception on tax-related ethical decision-making. These findings highlight that ethical perception rather than ethical competence plays a more dominant role in shaping moral resistance toward tax avoidance among accounting students. The study underscores the importance of integrating ethics-oriented learning within accounting curricula to strengthen students’ moral reasoning and awareness from an early stage. Furthermore, the results provide implications for educators, policymakers, and professional bodies to design comprehensive ethics education that not only transmits ethical knowledge but also fosters reflective moral understanding and professional integrity essential for combating unethical practices in the taxation field. The study concludes that ethical perception significantly reduces accounting students’ acceptance of tax avoidance, while ethical competence does not moderate this relationship. This highlights the need for accounting education to strengthen students’ ethical awareness and moral sensitivity to foster integrity, responsibility, and fairness in future taxation practices. The findings can be applied in accounting education by integrating ethics-based learning modules that enhance students’ moral awareness and decision-making. For industry, they emphasize the need for ethical training and compliance programs to foster integrity among professionals, thereby improving ethical standards and reducing tolerance toward tax avoidance practices.