Arguably, for many citizens the perceived expected disutility from sanctions is smaller than the monetary gain from tax evasion. Nevertheless most people pay their taxes most of the time. In a lab experiment, we show that the willingness to pay taxes even absent enforcement is indeed pronounced....

In a laboratory experiment on tax compliance, we model a situation in which high-income taxpayers can leave a tax system that finances a public good. We compare low-income taxpayers' compliance decisions and equity perceptions across treatments in which they are informed or not informed about...

The aim of the paper was to analyze some behavioral effects, especially the effect of “hidden” tax, the “preference of progressivity” effect and some kind of “preference of short period incidence” effects of citizen. The effects predict the citizens will prefer hidden taxes to direct...

Governments and tax administrators around the world rely on the premise that audits will deter tax evasion. This Article presents experimental evidence that this premise may be, at least in part, misguided. Counterintuitively, I find that audits presented as random may induce taxpayers to cheat...

Shrinking budgetary allocations for tax enforcement at the U.S. federal level have placed an unprecedented premium on low-cost policies that promote voluntary tax compliance. In other jurisdictions, tax administrators have experimented with rewarding taxpayers for voluntarily complying with tax...

We study the effect of social pressure on tax compliance, focusing on the compliance of shop sellers to the legal obligation of releasing tax receipts for each sale. We carry out a field experiment on bakeries in Italy, where a strong gap exists between the legal obligation and the actual...