Tax Morale: Framing and Fairness

Phillis Alexander (), Merima Balavac (), Suranjita Mukherjee () and David Massey ()
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Phillis Alexander: Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics, Bournemouth University
Merima Balavac: Univerzitiet u Sarajevu
Suranjita Mukherjee: Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics, Bournemouth University
David Massey: University of Central Lancashire

No BAFES24, BAFES Working Papers from Department of Accounting, Finance & Economic, Bournemouth University

Abstract: This paper examines to the relationship between the perception of tax fairness and tax morale conditional on the level of financial and tax literacy (FTL). The findings are based on the survey responses of 627 US or UK citizens in either public or private employment. Using factor analysis, the researchers found that there is a systematic variation of the effect of perceived tax fairness conditional on the FTL. Further, the way in which questions are framed is found to be important. For positively framed tax morale questions, the moderating effect of tax fairness is significantly negative for low levels of FTL candidates and improves with literacy. However, in negatively framed tax morale questions, tax morale is improved as one views that the tax system is fair but the impact is significant for higher levels of literacy. This has further policy implications as the ‘framing’ of tax literature could be instrumental in improving the tax morale of taxpayers.

Keywords: Income Tax; Tax Morale; Tax Law; Taxability; Tax Compliance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: K34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21 pages
Date: 2018-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-iue, nep-law, nep-pbe and nep-pub
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