Study title

We report on data from a real-effort tax compliance experiment using three subject pools: students, who do not pay income tax; company employees, whose income is reported by a third party; and self-employed taxpayers, who are responsible for filing and payment. While compliance behaviour is unaffected by changes in the level of, or information about the audit probability, higher fines increase compliance. We found there are subject pool differences, where self-assessed taxpayers are the most compliant, while students are the least compliant. Through a simple framing manipulation, we show that such differences are driven by norms of compliance from outside the lab.Good tax design and administration are central to the functioning of the economy. Taxes are important determinants of economic behaviour, and good implementation can significantly increase economic and social welfare. The role of the Tax Administration Research Centre is to deliver research that enhances tax policy and provides lasting benefit to the economy. There are many research tools that can contribute to this goal but the greatest success will be achieved by combining a range of research methodologies and disciplines. The Centre will unite researchers from two institutions with distinguished reputations for research into tax administration and tax design. Complementary abilities and methodologies will be brought together to address a wide range of intersecting research projects. The research methodologies will include economic modelling, econometric analysis, experimentation, numerical simulation, and qualitative analysis. In undertaking its work the Centre will make extensive use of the HMRC/HMT Datalab to permit innovative empirical work to be undertaken. Some examples of the research projects to be conducted at the Centre are: Risk-based auditing and taxpayers' responses will investigate the reaction of taxpayers to audits, and how this will change the pattern of compliance behaviour. The...