The purpose of the article is to systematize the institutional characteristics of tax evasion in the system of international economic relations. The role of institutional structures in preventing individuals and legal entities from failing to fulfill their tax obligations is characterized. The object of the research is the institutional environment that constitutes the mechanisms of tax evasion at the national and global levels. The research methodology includes graphical and comparative methods, as well as system and functional approaches to the characterization of institutions and socio-economic phenomena in the context of tax evasion. Historical and logical analysis of institutional aspects of this phenomenon in the global economic environment is carried out. The information base consists of fundamental works on the identification of the causes and consequences of tax evasion, published by leading theorists of financial and tax science, as well as authoritative classic and modern works in the fields of social sciences. In order to assess the scale and impact of tax evasion on the modern system of global economic relations, reports and studies of international organizations (OECD, UN, IMF, etc.) and a number of research centers were used. The hypothesis of the study was that institutional factors are significant both for explaining the causes of tax evasion and for choosing appropriate mechanisms to counteract this phenomenon. The research resulted in a typology of institutional preconditions and consequences of tax evasion, previously absent in existing publications and first proposed by the author, designed to help regulators to have more meaningful impact on this process in the contemporary world economy. The main findings suggest that institutional factors significantly affect tax evasion. Formal rules of taxation established by the state, as well as tacit moral and ethical norms of behavior based on culture and religion, determine the behavior of individuals and business entities, the influence on which by interstate institutional structures of tax regulation seems necessary.