Using a survey-based experiment, this paper examines how tax authorities’ attributes of trust and power, when featured in the media, impact intended tax compliance. We apply excerpts from newspaper coverage on tax issues to manipulate the trustworthiness and power of tax authorities in Austria...

The tax compliance literature has mainly focused on individual tax evasion rather than firm tax evasion. In general, there is a lack of field experiments on the topic, and measuring tax compliance is challenging. To address this shortcoming in the literature, we conduct a field experiment on...

Kirchler, Hoelzl, and Wahl (2008) presented with the so-called ‘slippery slope’ framework a new approach to understand tax compliance. The slippery slope approach supposes two routes to tax compliance: deterrence of tax evasion by audits and fines on the one hand, and building a trusting...

The Slippery Slope Framework of tax compliance postulates that citizens’ compliance depends on the power of the authorities to enforce compliance and/or trust in the authorities and voluntary cooperation. While trust is widely recognized as a strong determinant of cooperation, empirical...

The slippery slope framework of tax compliance integrates different determinants of tax compliance and assigns them to one of two major dimensions. Accordingly, tax compliance depends on the factors perceived trust in the authorities and perceived power of the authorities, but trust on the one...

In this paper we give our perspective on the different paradigms that have shaped – and seem likely to shape in the future – research in the field of tax compliance behavior. These research paradigms include viewing tax evasion as a decision under risk made by a single taxpayer, as...

In tax compliance research, there has been a significant shift in research emphasis from the analysis of enforcement to the incorporation of trust-building measures that encourage cooperation. In this paper, we trace this shift. We first describe the four major "actors" in the tax compliance...

Tax compliance in a between-subjects experiment was higher when the uncertainty about the occurrence of an audit was not resolved until three weeks after participants had filed their tax returns than in a control treatment with immediate uncertainty resolution. Results have important...

The tax compliance literature has mainly focused on individual tax evasion rather than firm tax evasion. In general, there is a lack of field experiments on the topic, and measuring tax compliance is challenging. To address this shortcoming in the literature, we conduct a field experiment on...

Mental accounting practices of self-employed taxpayers are investigated in two studies. Interviews (N=30) revealed that perceptions of the tax due differ widely. While a majority mentally segregate the tax component from their net income, others claim ownership of the gross income as a whole and...