Christoph Kogler

Cooperative Tax Compliance From Deterrence to Deference

The prevailing neoclassical economic view in tax-behavior research is that trust is good, but control is better. The advice for combating tax evasion is to deter illegal behavior with rigid audits and harsh fines. But control and punishment may have unintended side effects; therefore, psychological variables (e.g., attitudes toward taxation, social norms, and perceived fairness) are receiving increased attention. The slippery-slope framework integrates both economic and psychological perspectives on tax compliance. It assumes that taxpayers abide by the law either because they fear detection and fines (enforced compliance) or because they feel an obligation to honestly contribute their share (voluntary cooperation). Whereas enforced compliance depends on the power of authorities, voluntary cooperation originates from taxpayers’ trust in the authorities. A growing body of empirical research supports this framework’s assumptions. The psychological approach to tax behavior has led to a change in tax authorities’ practices for regulating citizen behavior. Under the labels of “enhanced relationships,” “horizontal monitoring,” and “fair-play initiatives,” several European countries are advancing cooperative strategies with taxpayers.

'How Can I Help You?' Perceived Service Orientation of Tax Authorities and Tax Compliance

Research on tax behavior has recognized the necessity of changing tax authorities’ approach from enforcement to service orientation. However, empirical investigations of the impact of perceived service orientation on tax compliance are scarce. The present study draws conclusions from survey data of representative samples of 807 Dutch private taxpayers and 1377 entrepreneurs. Perceived service orientation was found strongly related to tax compliance. Furthermore, the link between perceived service orientation and tax compliance is mediated by perceived trustworthiness of authorities. We are confident that taxpayers who perceive a greater service orientation will be more willing to contribute their taxes.

Tax policy and the news: An empirical analysis of taxpayers’ perceptions of tax-related media coverage and its impact on tax compliance

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 and assess intended compliance. The experimental treatment shows significant effects on indicated trust, perceived power of tax authorities, and intended tax compliance. Moreover, we observe a strong positive effect of participants’ education on indicated trust.

Differentiating Views of Inheritance: The Free Association Task as a Method to Assess Social Representations of Wealth, Inherit, and Bequeath

Inheritance and in particular inheritance taxes have emerged as topics of steadily increasing interest in public as well as scientific discourse and debate. The present study investigates laypeople’s differentiated social representations of inheritance with the aim of shedding light on distinct concepts of wealth, inherit, and bequeath. Furthermore, it comparatively discusses experts’ scientific discourse on inheritance and laypeople’s social representations of inheritance, with the aim to contribute to a clearer understanding of the roots of the conflictual dispute on inheritance tax. Overall, 75 Austrian taxpayers completed a free association task. Participants were asked to indicate their spontaneous associations with the stimuli wealth, inherit, and bequeath, and to evaluate their associations as positive, neutral, or negative. Polarity and neutrality indices were calculated to capture participants’ attitudes towards the stimuli. Lexicographical analyses as well as correspondence analyses were performed to map the social representations of the stimuli. The results show that the evaluations of the stimuli differ significantly. Furthermore, the semantic content of the social representations differs. Moreover, the comparative discussion of experts’ representations of inheritance, as revealed in the analyses of their scientific discourse, and laypeople’s social representations of inheritance shows that the core issues of the social representations of laypeople and the representations of experts differ not only in respect to their level of abstractness but also in their point of reference and in their content. Interestingly, taxation is a core issue for laypeople as well as experts. Hence, this study indicates that a differentiated use of the term inheritance is necessary in regard to reforms of legal regulations of inheritance and inheritance taxes as well as in research referring to inheritance.

Differentiating Self-Projection from Simulation during Mentalizing: Evidence from fMRI

We asked participants to predict which of two colors a similar other (student) and a dissimilar other (retiree) likes better. We manipulated if color-pairs were two hues from the same color-category (e.g. green) or two conceptually different colors (e.g. green versus blue). In the former case, the mental state that has to be represented (i.e., the percept of two different hues of green) is predominantly non-conceptual or phenomenal in nature, which should promote mental simulation as a strategy for mentalizing. In the latter case, the mental state (i.e. the percept of green versus blue) can be captured in thought by concepts, which facilitates the use of theories for mentalizing. In line with the self-projection hypothesis, we found that cortical midline areas including vmPFC / orbitofrontal cortex and precuneus were preferentially activated for mentalizing about a similar other. However, activation was not affected by the nature of the color-difference, suggesting that self-projection subsumes simulation-like processes but is not limited to them. This indicates that self-projection is a universal strategy applied in different contexts—irrespective of the availability of theories for mentalizing. Along with midline activations linked to self-projection, we also observed activation in right lateral frontal and dorsal parietal areas showing a theory-like pattern. Taken together, this shows that mentalizing does not operate based on simulation or theory, but that both strategies are used concurrently to predict the choices of others.