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An experimental approach to changing taxpayers' attitudes towards fairness and compliance via television
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One of the overriding purposes of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA '86) was to address public dissatisfaction with the perceived unfairness of the federal income tax (Joint Committee on Taxation 1987; Birnbaum and Murray 1987). However, subsequent to passage of the new law, several surveys reported taxpayers' beliefs that TRA '86 did not improve the fairness of the income tax system (Carroll 1989; Hite and Roberts 1989; Swingen 1989; Sharp 1989). More recently, Kinsey and Grasmick (1992; 1993) indicated that the substantive changes of TRA '86 have had some positive effect on taxpayers' attitudes. Nevertheless, overall levels of fairness perceptions reported in public opinion polls remain low (Kinsey and Grasmick 1993; Wessel and Frisby 1993). Negative public perceptions about fairness are important because they are believed to affect tax compliance (Roth et al. 1989).
The purpose of this paper is to address the extent to which taxpayers' attitudes about the fairness of the federal income tax, and thereby, their attitudes towards tax compliance, can be improved. In particular, this paper reports an experimental attempt to directly and positively influence public attitudes about the fairness of the federal income tax and tax compliance. In their review of tax compliance research, Roth et al. (1989) and Jackson and Milliron (1986) noted that taxpayers' concerns about fairness (in particular, exchange equity with the government and horizontal and vertical equity among individual taxpayers) have been linked with attitudes and behavioral intentions about tax compliance. McKee and Gerbing (1989), Musgrave (1992), and Sheffrin (1992), among others, have noted the public's lack of knowledge about the income tax system. Combining these two findings, the approach taken in this study involved providing factual information about tax effects--such as the actual percentage of the tax burden paid by upper-, middle-, and lower-income groups--in a public service...