I don't think Latvians are inherently more corrupt than anyone else really. From what I can tell, there is actually very little corruption in regular - day to day life.

People do tend to pay as little in taxes as possible or evade them altogether if they can get away with this. HOWEVER, this is by far not a Latvian invention. This is the human condition.

I have a Norwegian (and some Swedish) friends who gladly pay taxes, but they do not pay them out of the "goodness" of the heart. They do it because they feel that "the state will take care of me, I don't have to worry about ANYTHING, I will be taken care of". And there's good evidence to support their belief. They can see the benefits of contributing to the system. They are taken care of.

In case of Latvia, the state won't take care of you. You have to take care of yourself. People don't see their taxes being put to a particularly good use either and generally it is seen as a sink. They don't trust the government. Moreover there's not actually that much money going around to begin with.

In addition to that, there's good amount of data to support the notion that people in their 20ties-30ties-40ties won't see any pension payments at all due to the demographic situation - and the fact that their social contributions go directly to feed the elderly from the soviet generation. Plus, the tax-burden on the workforce is insanely high.

Taken this into account, paying the least amount in taxes is the rational choice. For some people it is the only real option.

There's a strong misconception that "poor countries are poor, because they are corrupt". Corruption does contribute to poverty in Latvia, it's simply not the main cause of it. Incompetent government does more damage than a certain amount of corruption does. But alas...

The US government, the UK(London), Spain are all insanely corrupt.

Humans are - by nature - are inherently selfish. And as such - have tendency for corruption.