Does giving taxpayers a voice over the destination of tax revenues lead to more honest income declarations? Previous experiments have shown that giving participants the opportunity to select the organization that receives their tax funds tends to increase tax compliance. The aim of this paper is to assess whether this increase in compliance is induced by the sole fact of giving subjects a choice—a “direct democracy effect”. To that aim, we ask participants to a tax evasion game to choose, in a collective or individual choice setting, between two very similar organizations which provide the same social (ecological) benefits. We elicit compliance for both organizations before the choice is made so as to control for the counter-factual compliance decision. We find that democracy does not increase compliance, and even observe a slight negative effect—in particular for women. Our results confirm the existence of a commitment effect of democracy, leading to favor more the selected organization when it was actively chosen. The commitment effect of democracy is however not enough to overcome the decrease in the level of compliance. Thanks to response times data, we show that prior choice on similar options as compared to a purely random selection weakens the preference for honesty. One important field application of our results is that democracy in tax spending must offer real choices to tax payers to improve compliance.

让纳税人就税收收入的目的地发表意见是否会导致更诚实的收入申报？之前的实验表明，让参与者有机会选择接收税收资金的组织往往会提高税收合规性。本文的目的是评估这种依从性的增加是否是由给予受试者选择的唯一事实——“直接民主效应”——引起的。为此，我们要求逃税游戏的参与者在集体或个人选择环境中，在提供相同社会（生态）利益的两个非常相似的组织之间进行选择。在做出选择之前，我们会为两个组织征求合规性，以便控制与事实相反的合规决策。我们发现民主不会增加服从性，甚至观察到轻微的负面影响——尤其是对女性而言。我们的结果证实了民主的承诺效应的存在，当它被主动选择时，会导致更多的青睐。然而，民主的承诺效应不足以克服遵守水平的下降。由于响应时间数据，我们表明与纯随机选择相比，对类似选项的优先选择削弱了对诚实的偏好。我们的结果的一个重要领域应用是，税收支出的民主必须为纳税人提供真正的选择，以提高合规性。然而，民主的承诺效应不足以克服遵守水平的下降。由于响应时间数据，我们表明与纯随机选择相比，对类似选项的优先选择削弱了对诚实的偏好。我们的结果的一个重要领域应用是，税收支出的民主必须为纳税人提供真正的选择，以提高合规性。然而，民主的承诺效应不足以克服遵守水平的下降。由于响应时间数据，我们表明与纯随机选择相比，对类似选项的优先选择削弱了对诚实的偏好。我们的结果的一个重要领域应用是，税收支出的民主必须为纳税人提供真正的选择，以提高合规性。