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Framing Effects on Preferences for the Income Tax System

Journal of Tax Administration

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Title Framing Effects on Preferences for the Income Tax System
 
Creator Fatemi, Darius
Hasseldine, John
 
Description Lack of public support for a tax system can lead to its demise, as demonstrated by the UK poll tax debacle. On the other hand, McCaffery and Baron (2004) argue that the politicians who best frame their arguments will rally public support to sustain the tax system. The present study examines how varying the frames on income tax attributes affects underlying attitudes toward the system. Most prior tax research on framing effects has not made a distinction between different types of framing effects as it has only examined risky choice framing. This study specifically analyzes attribute frames, and particularly focuses on equivalency and emphasis framing. The findings illustrate and document significant effects for these types of frames. For example, taxpayers are significantly more positive about 50 percent of taxpayers paying 4 percent of the taxes than they are about 50 percent of taxpayers paying 96 percent of the taxes. In addition, taxpayer preferences measured using descriptors such as “fair” or “unfair”, and “positive” or “negative”, affect the relationship between attributes and intentions to support the current tax system. Thus, equivalency and emphasis framing not only affect attitudes toward a specific attribute, but also influence how these attributes are weighted when determining overall tax system support.Keywords: Tax Compliance, Taxpayer Preferences, Tax Attitudes, Framing Effects, Attribute Frames.
 
Publisher Journal of Tax Administration
 
Contributor —
 
Date 2019-08-19
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Peer-reviewed Article
 
Format application/pdf
 
Identifier http://jota.website/index.php/JoTA/article/view/234
 
Source Journal of Tax Administration; Vol 5, No 2 (2019)
2059-190X
 
Language eng
 
Relation http://jota.website/index.php/JoTA/article/view/234/172
http://jota.website/index.php/JoTA/article/downloadSuppFile/234/49
 
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