In order to collect the revenue necessary to fund public goods, a state is often required to both deter tax evasion and encourage voluntary tax compliance on the part of its citizens. While most prior research has focused on explaining tax evasion with standard economic model parameters, there has been growing interest in identifying the determinants of voluntary compliance. We build on this work by proposing a legitimacy-based model of tax compliance that accounts for why some citizens voluntarily comply with their tax obligations and others do not. To test our model, we develop and administer a survey experiment of income tax evasion to a large random sample of undergraduate students. We also investigate the extent to which design-based method effects bias our results, such as order effects, complexity effects, and missing information effects. Substantively, results strongly support the standard economic model of deterrence and weakly support the legitimacy-based model of voluntary compliance. Methodologically, we find no evidence of order effects, weak evidence of complexity effects, and suggestive evidence of missing information effects.

中文翻译：

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合法权威与理性纳税人——所得税逃税调查实验中的自愿遵守与方法效应考察

为了收集资助公共物品所需的收入，国家通常需要既阻止逃税又鼓励公民自愿遵守税收。虽然大多数先前的研究都集中在用标准经济模型参数解释逃税行为，但人们对确定自愿遵守的决定因素越来越感兴趣。我们在这项工作的基础上提出了一个基于合法性的税收合规模型，该模型解释了为什么一些公民自愿遵守其纳税义务而其他人则没有。为了测试我们的模型，我们针对大量随机抽样的本科生开发并管理了一项关于逃税的调查实验。我们还调查了基于设计的方法对结果的影响程度，例如顺序效应、复杂性效应和缺失信息效应。实质上，结果强烈支持标准的威慑经济模型，弱支持基于合法性的自愿遵守模型。在方法论上，我们没有发现顺序效应的证据，复杂性效应的弱证据，以及缺失信息效应的暗示性证据。