Nudging towards tax compliance: A fieldwork-informed randomised controlled trial

Maris Vainre, Laura Aaben, Alari Paulus, Helleka Koppel, Helelyn Tammsaar, Keiu Telve, Katre Koppel, Kaia Beilmann and Andero Uusberg
Additional contact information
Maris Vainre: Praxis Centre for Policy Studies
Laura Aaben: Praxis Centre for Policy Studies
Helleka Koppel: Center for Applied Anthropology of Estonia
Helelyn Tammsaar: Center for Applied Anthropology of Estonia
Keiu Telve: Center for Applied Anthropology of Estonia
Katre Koppel: Center for Applied Anthropology of Estonia
Kaia Beilmann: Center for Applied Anthropology of Estonia
Andero Uusberg: University of Tartu

Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, 2020, vol. 3, issue 1

Abstract: Changing complex behaviors such as tax evasion may require several behavioral interventions, or nudges. We developed a tailored compound intervention approach to increase employers’ payroll tax compli-ance in Estonia’s construction industry. First, we used anthropological methods to gain insights into the deci-sion processes of employers and employees in the industry (Study 1, N=16). These insights were combined with behavioral decision-making principles to design an intervention e-mail with the aim to strengthen per-ceived risks and weaken descriptive norms of non-compliance as well as to strengthen collaborative and weaken adversarial construal of tax authority. The compound intervention was tested using a three-armed non-blinded randomized controlled trial (Study 2, N=4770) involving all employers whose declared wages were below 70% of the industry’s average. The intervention significantly increased declared payroll taxes by 5.1% to 6.1% on average across the two treated groups over a 3-month follow-up period (p

Keywords: Payroll taxes; Field experiment; Behavioral insights; Nudges (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D90 D91 H26 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpd:articl:v:3:y:2020:i:1:jbpa.31.84

DOI: 10.30636/jbpa.31.84

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