This paper reports on the results of a controlled experiment in Minnesota in which a random sample of taxpayers was informed that their income tax returns would certainly be closely examined. We analyze reported income of this sample of taxpayers, reported income on their previous year's...

Some academics and politicians have proposed that taxpayers should be reimbursed for costs of randomly imposed tax audits, because, they argue, randomly imposing audit costs is unfair. But none of those proposing audit compensation has explained why randomly imposed audit costs are unfair, or...

Two experiments show that eliciting taxpayer preferences on government spending -- providing taxpayer agency -- increases tax compliance. We first create an income and taxation environment in a laboratory setting to test for compliance with a "lab tax.'' Allowing a treatment group to express...