Tax morale: Framing and fairness
Authors: Alexander, P. and Balavac-Orlic, M.
Journal: Economic Systems
Volume: 46
Issue: 1
ISSN: 0939-3625
DOI: 10.1016/j.ecosys.2021.100936
Abstract:Tax morale has been a focus of academics and policy makers for some time. The measurement of individuals’ tax morale is subjective, and various proxies have been employed in qualitative and quantitative research. The framing of these measures has been considered in some research with respect to equivalency or goal framing, but the underlying implication of emphasis framing in commonly used proxies has yet to be considered. Further, although fairness and financial literacy have been considered determinants of tax morale, no one has yet considered whether financial and tax literacy (FTL) has a moderating effect on fairness and tax morale. This research addresses these gaps in the literature. The findings suggest that questions and scenarios posed by academics and policy makers should consider positive, negative, and emphasis framing, as well as the moderating effect of the respondents’ FTL to measure individuals’ tax morale effectively. The findings also suggest that raising levels of FTL could have a double dividend: not only will improved FTL have a positive impact on tax morale, but it might be magnified through the impact of fairness. These findings hold only when morale is determined by negatively framed scenarios. In particular, the perceived fairness of the tax system enhances tax morale when FTL is high, whereas the perception of fairness has no effect on tax morale for respondents with lower levels of FTL.
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/36595/
Source: Scopus
Tax morale: Framing and fairness
Authors: Alexander, P. and Balavac-Orlic, M.
Journal: ECONOMIC SYSTEMS
Volume: 46
Issue: 1
eISSN: 1878-5433
ISSN: 0939-3625
DOI: 10.1016/j.ecosys.2021.100936
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/36595/
Source: Web of Science (Lite)
Tax Morale: Framing and Fairness
Authors: Alexander, P. and Balavac, M.
Journal: Economic Systems
Publisher: Elsevier
ISSN: 0939-3625
Abstract:This paper examines to the relationship between the perception of tax fairness and tax morale conditional on the level of financial and tax literacy (FTL).
The findings are based on the survey responses of 627 US or UK citizens in either public or private employment. Using factor analysis, the researchers found that there is a systematic variation of the effect of perceived tax fairness conditional on the FTL. Further, the way in which questions are framed is found to be important. For positively framed tax morale questions, the moderating effect of tax fairness is significantly negative for low levels of FTL candidates and improves with literacy. However, in negatively framed tax morale questions, tax morale is improved as one views that the tax system is fair but the impact is significant for higher levels of literacy. This has further policy implications as the ‘framing’ of tax literature could be instrumental in improving the tax morale of taxpayers.
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/36595/
Source: Manual
Tax morale: Framing and fairness
Authors: Alexander, P. and Balavac, M.
Journal: Economic Systems
Volume: 46
Issue: 1
ISSN: 0939-3625
Abstract:Tax morale has been a focus of academics and policy makers for some time. The measurement of individuals’ tax morale is subjective, and various proxies have been employed in qualitative and quantitative research. The framing of these measures has been considered in some research with respect to equivalency or goal framing, but the underlying implication of emphasis framing in commonly used proxies has yet to be considered. Further, although fairness and financial literacy have been considered determinants of tax morale, no one has yet considered whether financial and tax literacy (FTL) has a moderating effect on fairness and tax morale.
This research addresses these gaps in the literature. The findings suggest that questions and scenarios posed by academics and policy makers should consider positive, negative, and emphasis framing, as well as the moderating effect of the respondents’ FTL to measure individuals’ tax morale effectively. The findings also suggest that raising levels of FTL could have a double dividend: not only will improved FTL have a positive impact on tax morale, but it might be magnified through the impact of fairness. These findings hold only when morale is determined by negatively framed scenarios. In particular, the perceived fairness of the tax system enhances tax morale when FTL is high, whereas the perception of fairness has no effect on tax morale for respondents with lower levels of FTL.
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/36595/
Source: BURO EPrints