Framing Effects on Preferences for the Income Tax System
Keywords:
Tax Compliance, Taxpayer Preferences, Tax Attitudes, Framing Effects, Attribute FramesAbstract
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.
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