This paper considers that corruption is a major factor that explains citizens' tax morality, understood as their willingness to pay taxes. This idea is argued rhetorically and analytically, and then tested through empirical evidence based on several ordered probit models, estimated by the data obtained from a 2010 Latinobarómetro survey carried out in eighteen Latin American countries. The findings show that individual experience with this phenomenon seems irrelevant, while public perception of its effects, resulting from the perspective of a wide range of actors, including entrepreneurs and citizens, does play a role in this respect.