Developing Alternative Frameworks for Explaining Tax Compliance [Hardcover]

Over the last several decades, there has been a growing interest in theoretical, empirical, and experimental work on all aspects of tax compliance and tax evasion. The essays in this volume summarize the existing state of knowledge of tax compliance and tax evasion, present new thinking about this issue, and analyze the empirical relevance of these new perspectives. The original essays in this volume represent an attempt to provide a framework on compliance that moves beyond the economics-of-crime perspective, one that provides a more complete understanding of individual (and group) decisions, and one that is more consistent with empirical evidence.

It is the insights of behavioural economics that provide much of the bases for these essays and the main theme running through this book is that the basic model of individual choice must be expanded, by introducing some aspects of behaviour or motivation considered explicitly by other social sciences.

Part 1: Introduction to the Volume  1. Developing Alternative Frameworks for Explaining Tax Compliance James Alm, Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, and Benno Torgler  Part 2: A Review and a Critique of the Existing Literature  2. Why Pay Taxes? A Review of Tax Compliance DecisionsErich Kirchler, Stephan Muehlbacher, Barbara Kastlunger, and Ingrid Wahl  Part 3: Expanding the Standard Theory of Compliance  3. Tax Compliance: Social Norms, Culture and Endogeneity John Cullis, Philip Jones, and Alan Lewis  4. Vertical and Horizontal Reciprocity in a Theory of Taxpayer Compliance Jan Schnellenbach  5. Tax Evasion and the Psychological Tax Contract Lars P. Feld and Bruno S. Frey  Part 4: Empirical Evidence on Financial Incentives  6. A Meta-Analysis of Incentive Effects in Tax Compliance Experiments