| Abstract: |
Understanding the factors influencing people's choices in tax compliance
decision-making is still important because tax evasion is a crucial issue for
governments everywhere. This lab experiment investigates how social norms
influence tax compliance behavior. We examine the effects of positive and
negative empirical and normative expectations using the opinion-matching
approach for measurement. According to our results, normative expectations—as
opposed to empirical expectations—most strongly impact people's behavior.
Surprisingly, positive empirical messages may have a negative effect,
increasing tax evasion. Furthering our understanding of the causes of tax
evasion, we also include a norm-following task to assess participants'
propensity to adhere to norms. This study presents new viewpoints on tax
compliance while replicating some established conclusions from previous
research sheds new light on the interaction between tax compliance and social
norms. |