Martin Fochmann

Net Wage Illusion in a Real-Effort Experiment*

In a controlled laboratory experiment, subjects had to fold letters in order to earn money. While the net income per letter was the same in the three treatments, the gross income varied and the tax rate was 0, 25, and 50 percent. Although work incentives should be the same in all treatments, subjects worked harder and longer when they were taxed. We conclude that this is because of a net wage illusion effect. The existence of this effect demonstrates that not only are the tax rate and the tax base of importance for work incentives, but the perception of a tax is also important.

Tax Perception - An Empirical Survey

This paper gives a survey of the experimental literature on the perception (bias) of individuals with respect to their own tax burden and its effect on economic decisions. Six strands of literature are discussed: (1) perception of marginal tax rates, (2) influence of tax complexity on tax perception, (3) taxation and incentives to work, (4) tax salience, (5) tax morale and fairness and (6) money illusion, perceived inflation and fiscal drag. The literature discussed contains more evidence for than against a perception bias.

The Biased Effect of Aggregated and Disaggregated Income Taxation on Investment Decisions

In a laboratory experiment that allows us to vary the taxation method while keeping the financial outcomes constant, we find clear evidence that aggregated income taxation (comparable to profit taxation) with complete loss deduction induces a sustained bias towards more risky investment decisions, while disaggregated income taxation (comparable to a transaction taxation with loss offset) does not. We suggest that this bias may be exploited to increase the volume of private investments by choosing aggregated income taxation if investors are (too) risk-averse, and to decrease the volume and the risk by choosing disaggregated income taxation if investors are (too) risk-seeking.

The effects of rewards on tax compliance decisions

The findings of the tax literature suggest that the mechanism how tax revenues are redistributed has an important influence on tax compliance. One conjecture is that if the redistribution mechanism is perceived as positive by the taxpayers, this leads them to comply with the tax laws more truthfully. In contrast, for a negative perception, lower tax compliance is expected. To the best of our knowledge, there is no study systematically analyzing these effects. To fill this gap, we conduct a laboratory experiment and analyze how the redistribution of tax revenues influences tax compliance behavior by applying different reward mechanisms. In our experiment, subjects have to make two decisions. In the first stage, subjects decide on the contribution to a public good. In the second stage, subjects declare their income from the first stage for taxation. Our main results are threefold: First, from an aggregated perspective, rewards have a negative overall effect on tax compliance. Second, we observe that rewards affect the decision of taxpayers asymmetrically. In particular, rewards have either no effect (for those who are rewarded) or a negative effect (for those who are not rewarded) on tax compliance. Thus, if a high compliance rate of taxpayers is preferred, rewards should not be used by the tax authority. Third, we find an inverse u-shaped relationship between public good contribution and tax compliance. In particular, up to a certain level, tax compliance increases with subjects’ own contributions to the public good. Above this level, however, tax compliance decreases with the public good contribution.

Real Tax Effects and Tax Perception Effects in Decisions on Asset Allocation

We test the predictions of the theoretical literature initiated by the study of Domar and Musgrave (1944) with a laboratory experiment in which subjects have to decide on the composition of an asset portfolio. Our simple design enables us to distinguish between Real Tax Effects and Perception Effects when a proportional income tax, with and without a full loss offset provision, is introduced. Observed investment behavior is partially inconsistent with the theoretical predictions if we do not control for the Perception Effects. However, if we consider these effects, we find support for the theory. The isolated Perception Effects can explain the unexpected behavior observed in previous studies and has both scientific and political implications.

Affective Reactions Influence Investment Decisions: Evidence from a Laboratory Experiment With Taxation

We investigate the effect of taxation on gains and losses on the investment behavior of investors. Based on the insights of both economic research on the influence of taxation on investment behavior and psychological concepts dealing with the descriptive decision behavior of investors we expect investors to react to taxation of investment alternatives they face with behavioral and affective changes. By conducting a laboratory experiment with a total of 72 participants based on the experimental design of Fochmann, Kiesewetter, and Sadrieh (2012) that allows to quantify the reactions of investors to taxation on gains and loss deduction independent of their individual risk preferences and additionally measuring the affective reactions of our participants, we explore the role of affect in the relation of taxation and decision making. Hence, we are able to show that affective reactions to the taxation situations, in particular the perceived valence of these situations, influence the change in behavior of investors when confronted with taxation on gains and limited loss deduction.

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Effects on Behavioral Tax Biases in Risky Investment Decisions

In a variety of recent papers, it is shown that individuals do not take taxes correctly into account, which results in distorted or unexpected investment behavior. We shed further light on the discussion of such behavioral tax perception biases by analyzing intrinsic and extrinsic effects on decision behavior. We study two dimensions: (1) the influence of emotions and cognition (individual dimension, intrinsic effects) and (2) the influence of available tax information by varying tax complexity and salience (tax system dimension, extrinsic effects). In our laboratory experiment, we construct the payoff structure such that the subjects are confronted with exactly the same choices in net terms in a situation with or without a capital gains tax. This design allows us to identify pure tax perception biases. We show that both dimensions are able to explain tax perception biases. In particular, we find evidence that perceived risk (cognition) is lower and consequently willingness to take risk is higher with a capital gains tax (with full loss offset provision) than without taxation. Furthermore, this positive effect on risky investment is higher in a situation with a rather low level of tax information in which tax complexity is high and tax salience is low. In addition, we are able to provide evidence that the use of decision heuristics can explain the observed tax bias differences between our information treatments. In particular, we find a negative relationship between the information level and the use of heuristics.

Understanding the Emergence of Public Debt

We use a controlled laboratory experiment with and without overlapping generations to study the emergence of public debt. Public debt is chosen by popular vote, pays for public goods, and is repaid with general taxes. With a single generation, public debt is accumulated prudently, never leading to over-indebtedness. With multiple generations, public debt is accumulated rapidly as soon as the burden of debt and the risk of over-indebtedness can be shifted to future generations. Debt ceiling mechanisms do not mitigate the debt problem. With overlapping generations, political debt cycles emerge, oscillating with the age of the majority of voters.

The two sides of public debt: Intergenerational altruism and burden shifting

In controlled laboratory experiments with and without overlapping generations, we study the role of intergenerational altruism in public debt accumulation. Public debt is chosen by popular vote, pays for public goods, and is repaid with general taxes. We use an optimal control model to derive a theoretical benchmark. With a single generation, public debt is accumulated prudently. With multiple and over-lapping generations, the burden of debt and the risk of over-indebtedness are shifted to future generations. We find a weak but significant sign of intergenerational altruism, observing that the revealed debt preferences increase as the number of following generations decreases. However, we find considerably fewer intergenerational fairness concerns than one would expect on the basis of the behavioral and experimental literature. Instead, political debt cycles that vary with voters’ age emerge. Debt ceiling mechanisms fail to encourage intergenerational altruism and do not mitigate the problem of burden shifting.

A Utility-Based Explanation of Tax Asymmetries

This paper develops a utility-based explanation for the existence of an asymmetric tax treatment of gains and losses when investors are loss averse. We find that loss offset rules should be more restrictive for investors which are (1) more risk averse in case of gains, (2) less risk seeking in case of losses, or (3) more loss averse. Our findings have important policy implications. Tax authorities often implement identical loss offset rules for different investor clienteles. However, when designing loss offset rules, tax authorities should take into account the substantial heterogeneity in risk attitude and loss aversion across different groups of investors.