Research On The Economic And Psychology Of Tax Compliance Behavior

This paper is a cross study of economic and social psychology of tax compliance.Based on the traditional economic analysis of tax compliance,this paper extends the study of tax compliance anomalies.Behavioral economics is a cross-study of traditional economics and social psychology,so this paper also analyzes the path of taxpayers' psychological influence on tax compliance,and puts forward some policy recommendations according to the conclusions of the research.The papers of traditional economic analysis are mainly based on the Allingham and Sandmo's A-S Model(1972),using expected utility theory to analyze the taxpayers'decision making of tax compliance behavior.Scholars tried to improve the theory by introducing more affecting factors and gained remarkable results in the past 40 years.However,from the behavioral economics' point of view,the classical economic theory cannot explain the anomalies such as tax compliance puzzle(i.e.taxpayers are more compliant than the traditional economic models predict),advance tax payment phenomenon,and framing effect.The existing research tries to explain compliance anomalies from the behavioral economics perspective,and comes to the conclusion that factors like the way of tax administration,mode and effect of tax audit,mechanism of advance tax payment and refund contribute to the conflict between realistic choice and theoretical prediction.On this basis,the dissertation delves into issue by using behavioral economics theory in a broad and in-depth way,combing prospect theory,mental accounting and latest developments in this area,and gains some results.The author believes that tax compliance behavior cannot be satisfactorily explained just from the rational agents' angle.Besides psychological factors such as self-serving bias and intuitive thinking,social norms,ethics,tax system,and values also have substantial influence.Foreign economists and psychologists have done a lot of research in this area,much of which is related to tax knowledge and subjective structure,i.e.how individual motivation and collective moral impact on tax behavior.In our country,scholars have made some development on the research of tax compliance behavior from behavioral economics angel,but further exploration is absolutely essential.This dissertation is the efforts made out of the expectation to solve the puzzles confusing the author.Apart from economic interests,many studies show that factors like attitude of one self and others towards tax,and equity and complexity of tax system are also important in determining tax compliance behavior.Therefore,it is essential to understand how people regard tax and tax evasion.The dissertation assesses people's perception of tax by questionnaire,and elaborates the national image in citizen's mind.The questionnaire was carried out from various dimensions,e.g.knowledge of tax law,sense of social compliance,perception of fairness and so on.The results show that the moral factor does not have a dominant advantage in determining tax compliance.Based on the conclusion of theoretical analysis,this paper proposes that the tax authorities undefined orientation to taxpayers and their mutual cooperation forms may produce two different kinds of tax atmosphere,that is,to promote tax resistance and maximize personal benefits.Or to promote taxpayer trust in government agencies and recognition of its legitimacy.The result of the latter is cooperation and voluntary compliance.A taxpayer who interacts with tax authorities in a cooperative manner is more likely to trust tax authorities.It is a fundamental measure to improve the level of tax administration to build trust and reciprocal tax collection and collection relationship and to improve the inner compliance level.The possible innovations of the dissertation include:first,from altruism and social preference perspective,tax emotional management bureau should be established;second,based on the analysis of tax administration measures,more tax compliance anomalies are disclosed.With regard to research methods,although some scholars have applied questionnaire to study tax compliance behavior,the scope of respondents are relatively narrow,manly among students and entrepreneurs.The dissertation changes that.Using experimental method to study tax compliance is not common in domestic papers,and the dissertation does some attempts in this respect.