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You ’ ve got mail : A randomised field experiment on tax evasion
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Bott, Kristina Cappelen, Alexander W. |
| Copyright Year | 2014 |
| Abstract | The present paper reports the results from a randomized field experiment conducted with 18 000 taxpayers who were likely to have misreported their foreign income. Shortly after sending the pre-populated tax returns for 2012, the tax administration in Norway mailed a letter to these tax subjects with information about how to report foreign income. We find that including a moral appeal in this letter almost doubled the average foreign income reported compared to a base letter without such an appeal. The effect of a moral appeal is similar in size to the effect of including a sentence that increases the perceived probability of detection. However, moral appeals and detection probability influence tax compliance in fundamentally different ways. The moral appeals mainly work on the intensive margin, by increasing the amount reported of those who report any foreign income. The probability of detection, on the other hand, mainly works on the extensive margin, by increasing the share of tax subjects who report any foreign income. ∗We would like to thank Nadja Dwenger, Uri Gneezy, David Laibson, John List, László Sándor, and Emmanuel Saez for extremely valuable comments and suggestions; Ingvild Holler Deisz, Paul-Gunnar Larsen, Sissel Madsen, Gitte Mårtensen, and Christine Osen Tefre at Skatt Vest for their assistance in implementing the experiment; and Trine Sivertsen Sommerlade at Bergen Brannvesen and Fredrik Naumann for pictures used in the experimental materials. All authors: The Choice Lab, Norwegian School of Economics. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://www.aeaweb.org/conference/2015/retrieve.php?pdfid=240 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Aspartate Transaminase Audio feedback Evasion (network security) Mail Population Randomized algorithm Trine 2 Uniform Resource Identifier |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
