The volatility of the global economic market and the fierce competition in attracting foreign investments have determined European and MENA authorities to reconsider interactions with taxpayers. Thus, benefitting from international assistance, authorities have started implementing tax strategies and models like co-operative compliance, horizontal monitoring, whistleblowing. This empirical investigation is grounded on the “slippery slope” framework that attempts to solve the “riddle of tax compliance” via trust in and power of authorities. The former is proxied by “Trust in national government” (Gallup World Poll), the latter by “Rule of law” (World Bank). The two-step cluster analysis run on 215 countries worldwide, including 35 from Europe, 12 from MENA, yielded four tax climates: trust and power high (T+P+), trust and power low (T-P-), trust high-power low (T+P-), trust low-power high (T-P+). While the majority of European countries are spread between T+P+ and T-P+, MENA countries generally belong to T-P-, demanding stability and efficiency in all major areas of the societies.