Tax morale and fairness in conflict an experiment

Christoph Engel, Luigi Mittone and Azzurra Morreale

Journal of Economic Psychology, 2020, vol. 81, issue C

Abstract: Most people pay their taxes most of the time, even if the expected disutility from enforcement is too low to deter tax evasion. One potential reason is tax morale and, more specifically, rule following. In a lab experiment, we show that the willingness to pay taxes just because participants are told they are supposed to pay is indeed pronounced. Yet compliance is reduced if participants learn that income is heterogeneous. The effect is driven by participants with the lowest income. The reduction obtains irrespective of the tax regime. If the tax is proportional to income, or progressive, participants become more skeptical about the willingness of participants with high income to comply.

Keywords: Rule following; Fairness; Tax evasion; Tax morale; Heterogeneity; Beliefs; Path model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C30 C91 D01 D02 D31 D63 D91 H26 K34 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487020300751
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Tax Morale and Fairness in Conflict - An Experiment (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joepsy:v:81:y:2020:i:c:s0167487020300751

DOI: 10.1016/j.joep.2020.102314

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economic Psychology is currently edited by G. Antonides and D. Read

More articles in Journal of Economic Psychology from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().