How to Improve Tax Compliance? Evidence from Population-Wide Experiments in Belgium
通过在比利时对全体所得税纳税人进行四项实地实验，研究发现简化沟通能显著提高税收遵从，威慑信息有额外正向效果，而诉诸税收道德则无效甚至适得其反，且简化比标准执法措施更具成本效益。
We study the impact of simplification, deterrence, and tax morale on tax compliance. We ran four natural field experiments varying the communication of the tax administration with the universe of income taxpayers in Belgium throughout the tax process. A consistent picture emerges across experiments: (i) simplifying communication substantially increases compliance, (ii) deterrence messages have an additional positive effect, (iii) invoking tax morale is not effective and often backfires. A discontinuity in enforcement intensity, combined with the experimental variation, allows us to compare simplification with standard enforcement measures. We find that simplification is far more cost-effective, allowing for substantial savings on enforcement costs. \n \n