Are Your Tax Problems an Opportunity Not to Pay Taxes? Evidence From a Randomized Survey Experiment

Taxpayers often view tax rules and filing processes as complicated. In this paper I study whether the perceived uncertainty among peers leads to a reduction of voluntary compliance. find strong supportive evidence for hypothesis using survey experiment large representative sample German population. Providing randomized information that others are uncertain about how file their taxable income decreases individual morale. This suggests subjects use negative peer signals an excuse in order opt-out Studying related heterogeneous treatment effects, both older left-wing more responsive others. also show persistent effects very honest taxpayers follow-up survey.