📈 economics

The Professional Intermediation Paradox in Tax Auditing: The Suppression Effect of Perceived CPAs’ Role on the Perceived Effectiveness and Fairness of the Tax Audit System

This study explores a statistical suppression pattern in survey data from Turkish CPAs, suggesting that while perceived tax-audit importance positively influences views on system effectiveness and fairness, the CPAs' perceived professional role acts as a suppressor variable, leading to the proposal of a "professional intermediation paradox" as a non-causal interpretive framework for future research.

Original authors: Alper KILIÇASLAN, Gazi SONKUR

Published 2026-09-03

📖 5 min read🧠 Deep dive

CC BY 4.0

Original authors: Alper KILIÇASLAN, Gazi SONKUR

Original paper licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). ✨ This is an AI-generated explanation of the paper below. It is not written or endorsed by the authors. For technical accuracy, refer to the original paper. Read full disclaimer

In the world of public finance, a tax system relies on a delicate balance between the government's need to collect revenue and the citizen's willingness to pay. For this system to work, people must believe that the rules are fair and that the authorities are watching closely enough to catch those who try to avoid compliance. This belief is often shaped by the concept of deterrence: the idea that if you think you will be caught and punished, you are less likely to break the law. However, most people do not interact with the tax system directly. Instead, they rely on professional accountants to translate complex laws into clear actions, to keep accurate records, and to navigate the risks of an audit. These professionals act as a bridge, or an intermediary, between the individual taxpayer and the state. The question researchers have long debated is whether this bridge helps the system work better by ensuring compliance, or if it somehow creates a distance that makes the system feel less transparent or fair.

A new study from researchers in Türkiye explores this relationship by looking at how certified public accountants perceive their own role and how that perception connects to their views on the tax audit system. The researchers focused on a specific group of 355 accountants working in the southeastern regions of the country, including Gaziantep and Şanlıurfa. They wanted to understand if the importance these professionals place on tax audits influences how they judge the fairness and effectiveness of the entire system. The study did not ask taxpayers how they feel, nor did it track whether audits actually caught more criminals. Instead, it asked the accountants themselves to rate how important they think audits are, how effective they believe the system is, and how vital their own professional role is in this process.

The researchers found a clear and positive connection between two main ideas. First, accountants who believe that tax audits are important and have a strong impact on the economy also tend to believe that the audit system itself is effective and fair. This aligns with the standard view that a strong, active audit system builds confidence in the rules. Second, these same accountants who value audits highly also tend to see their own professional role as more critical. It makes sense that if the stakes are high, the people managing the paperwork feel their job is more important. However, when the researchers looked deeper into the data, a surprising pattern emerged. Once they accounted for the general belief that audits are important, the specific perception of the accountant's role actually showed a negative link to how effective and fair the system seemed.

This result is what statisticians call a suppression effect, a situation where a variable hides or reverses a relationship when it is included in a calculation. In plain terms, the accountants who feel their role is most essential are the ones who, when stripped of the general belief that audits matter, tend to view the system as slightly less effective or fair. The researchers are careful to state that this does not mean accountants are bad for the system or that they actively harm public trust. Rather, it suggests a paradox: the very need for a professional intermediary to make sense of the tax code might be a sign that the system is too complex for people to understand on their own. When the rules are so difficult that a specialist is required to navigate them, the reliance on that specialist can coexist with a feeling that the system itself is not straightforward or accessible.

The study involved 355 participants, with the majority being male and many having decades of professional experience. The data was collected through a survey where accountants rated their agreement with various statements on a scale. The analysis showed that while the overall view of the tax system remains positive, the specific feeling of needing a professional buffer creates a subtle tension. The researchers emphasize that this finding is exploratory and based on a single snapshot in time, so it cannot prove that the accountant's role causes a change in how the system is perceived. It is also limited to the specific regions of Türkiye where the survey was conducted and cannot be automatically applied to every country or every type of taxpayer.

What this research suggests is that the relationship between professional help and system trust is not a simple line. The accountants in the study clearly see their work as supporting compliance and helping the government collect revenue, yet their deep involvement with the complexities of the law may also make them more aware of the system's flaws. The study proposes that this "professional intermediation paradox" is a real phenomenon worth investigating further. It hints that while professionals are necessary for the system to function, their presence might also highlight the gaps in the system's design. Future research would need to look at taxpayers directly and measure the actual complexity of the laws to confirm if this feeling of dependence is indeed what drives the critical view of the system. For now, the study offers a nuanced look at how the people who manage the tax system see it, revealing that high professional value and high system criticism can exist in the same mind at the same time.

Technical Summary: The Professional Intermediation Paradox in Tax Auditing

Problem Statement and Research Context
This study addresses a gap in the tax auditing literature regarding the interplay between three specific variables: the perceived importance and impact of tax audits, the perceived role of Certified Public Accountants (CPAs), and the perceived effectiveness and fairness of the tax audit system. While existing literature often examines these factors in isolation or focuses on objective indicators (e.g., audit counts, penalties), this research explores the statistical relationship between them, specifically investigating whether a "suppression effect" exists. The authors posit that CPAs function as "risk interpreters" who translate the deterrent power of the tax administration to taxpayers. However, as tax systems become more complex, the reliance on professional intermediaries may create a paradox where the perceived value of the CPA coexists with a more critical evaluation of the system's inherent accessibility and fairness. The study seeks to determine if the CPA's role acts as a statistical suppressor in the relationship between audit perception and system evaluation.

Methodology
The research employs a quantitative, cross-sectional design utilizing an exploratory secondary analysis of data originally collected for the first author's doctoral research.

Sample: The study analyzed 355 usable responses from CPAs (known in Turkish legislation as serbest muhasebeci mali müşavir or SMMM) operating in Gaziantep, Şanlıurfa, Adıyaman, and Kilis, Türkiye. The sample was obtained via criterion sampling between September 15 and November 1, 2025.
Measures: Three primary scales were used, measured on a 5-point Likert scale:
1. Tax Audit Importance and Impact (TAII): 10 items assessing the importance of audits for revenue, compliance, and deterrence.
2. Audit Effectiveness and Fairness (AEF): 13 items assessing system effectiveness, process functioning, and fairness.
3. CPA Role Perception (CPA-R): 17 items assessing practitioners' knowledge, compliance support, and institutional contribution.
Analytical Approach: The study utilized Pearson correlations and a regression-based indirect-effect decomposition (following Hayes, 2022) with 5,000 bootstrap resamples. The analysis was designed to identify conditional associations and statistical suppression patterns (where a predictor's relationship with an outcome changes sign or magnitude when a third variable is introduced). The authors explicitly note that the cross-sectional nature of the data precludes establishing temporal order or causality.

Key Results
The analysis yielded the following statistical patterns:

Bivariate Relationships: There is a strong, positive association between perceived tax-audit importance (TAII) and perceived audit-system effectiveness/fairness (AEF) ( $r = 0.702$ ). Similarly, TAII is strongly positively associated with the perceived CPA role (CPA-R) ( $r = 0.646$ ). The bivariate relationship between CPA-R and AEF is positive but relatively weak ( $r = 0.216$ ).
Regression Decomposition: When TAII and CPA-R were entered jointly to predict AEF:
- The conditional coefficient for TAII remained positive and increased in magnitude ( $\beta$ rose from 0.702 to 0.965).
- The conditional coefficient for CPA-R became negative ( $\beta = -0.408$ ).
Suppression Pattern: The indirect association through CPA-R was found to be negative and statistically significant (unstandardized $a \times b = -0.333$ , 95% CI $[-0.421, -0.253]$ ). This pattern—where the inclusion of the mediator reverses the sign of the indirect effect and increases the direct effect of the predictor—is consistent with a statistical suppression effect.

Key Contributions
The paper's primary contribution is the identification of a "professional intermediation paradox" as a testable proposition rather than a confirmed causal mechanism.

Statistical Insight: The study demonstrates that while CPAs are positively associated with both the perceived importance of audits and the perceived fairness of the system in isolation, their perceived role acts as a suppressor when controlling for audit perception. This suggests that the variance shared between audit perception and CPA role perception masks a negative conditional relationship between the CPA role and system evaluation.
Theoretical Synthesis: The authors propose that professional intermediation may function as a "buffer" against tax complexity. The paradox lies in the possibility that the high value attributed to professional support (necessary for navigating complex systems) coexists with a critical evaluation of the system's own institutional capacity. The study reframes the CPA not just as a service provider but as a variable that reveals the complexity and potential opacity of the tax system.
Methodological Transparency: The paper provides a transparent re-analysis of doctoral data, explicitly acknowledging the post hoc nature of the research question and the limitations regarding causality and common-method bias.

Significance and Claims
The authors maintain a modest stance regarding the implications of their findings:

No Causal Claims: The study explicitly states that the observed suppression pattern does not prove that CPAs cause changes in taxpayer or system perceptions, nor does it prove that CPAs negatively affect the audit system. The negative coefficient is a property of the fitted covariance structure in this specific exploratory model.
Interpretive Layer: The "professional intermediation paradox" is offered as an interpretive layer to connect tax-audit perceptions with system evaluations. It suggests that reliance on professionals may highlight the system's complexity, leading to a conditional divergence in how the system is evaluated versus how the professional is valued.
Future Research Agenda: The paper concludes that the concept requires further testing with direct measurements of tax complexity, institutional trust, and attribution processes. It calls for longitudinal, multi-source designs involving taxpayers, CPAs, and administrators to determine if professional intermediation facilitates compliance or merely compensates for systemic deficiencies.
Policy Caution: While the findings suggest that audit performance should be evaluated alongside clear guidance and risk communication, the authors caution that these are directions for future policy experimentation, not interventions causally established by the current model.

In summary, the paper identifies a specific statistical anomaly in CPA survey data that challenges simple linear interpretations of professional intermediation, proposing a complex, non-linear relationship where the necessity of professional support may simultaneously signal a lack of systemic simplicity.

Technical Summary: The Professional Intermediation Paradox in Tax Auditing

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