The effect of tax privacy on tax compliance: An experimental investigation

Arbeitspapier

In this paper, a tax game with audit costs as a public bad is designed to investigate the impact of public disclosure on tax evasion experimentally. Three different types of tax privacy are tested, ranging from complete privacy to full disclosure. We expect to observe two different effects: first, a contagion effect, arising when an individual observes non-compliance of other individuals and therefore reduces his own tax compliance; second, a shame effect of increased tax compliance due to the anticipated shame of being declared a tax evader. We find evidence of increasing tax evasion with reduced tax privacy if information is disclosed anonymously. Our results also indicate that the shame effect is not strong enough to override the contagion effect when both effects are present. Our results are of particular importance for fiscal policy because public disclosure may lead to more evasion instead of less, due to motivational crowding-out of tax morale.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: arqus Discussion Paper ; No. 164

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies; includes inheritance and gift taxes ; Tax Evasion and Avoidance ; Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents: General
• Thema: Tax privacy ; Tax evasion ; Public bad ; Social norm ; Conditional cooperation ; Economic experiment

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Blaufus, Kay ; Bob, Jonathan ; Otto, Philipp E.
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre (arqus)
• (wo): Berlin
• (wann): 2014

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/97269
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:41 MEZ