Guilt is a powerful emotion that is known to influence ethical decision-making. Nevertheless, the role of guilt cognitions in influencing restorative behaviour following an unethical action is not well understood. Guilt cognitions are interrelated beliefs about an individual's role in a negative event. We experimentally investigate the joint impact of three guilt cognitions-responsibility for a decision, justification for a decision, and foreseeability of consequences-on a taxpayer's decision to make a tax amnesty disclosure. Tax amnesties encourage delinquent taxpayers to self-correct to avoid severe penalties that would result if their tax evasion were discovered. Our findings suggest a three-way interaction effect such that taxpayers are likely to make tax amnesty disclosures when they foresee that they will be caught by the tax authority, unless they can diffuse responsibility for their evasion and justify their evasion. Implications for tax policy and tax professionals are discussed.
We experimentally investigate how tax authority responsibility for preventing identity theft and tax authority responsiveness following identity theft influence taxpayers' trust in the tax authority and subsequent tax compliance intentions. We find evidence that trust mediates the positive relation between tax authority responsiveness and compliance, but that this mediation effect is conditional upon levels of tax authority responsibility for the identity theft. Specifically, when taxpayers perceive that the tax authority is to blame for the identity theft, higher responsiveness by the tax authority does not significantly influence compliance through trust. However, when the tax authority is not to blame for identity theft, higher responsiveness by the tax authority significantly influences compliance through trust. These findings suggest that when the tax authority is to blame for identity theft, there may be little it can do to increase taxpayers' trust and subsequent compliance.
This article investigates experimentally, in the income tax context, how whistleblowing intentions are influenced when a tax fraud perpetrator is of a different race than a potential whistleblower. In particular, it examines the impact of a message highlighting the social value of whistleblowing and how fear of being perceived as racist influences whistleblowing decision-making. Using insights from the fear elicitation and processing literature, we find that a potential whistleblower from a majority racial group who learns about a fraud perpetrated by someone from a minority racial group is significantly more likely to blow the whistle anonymously when a social value message is present versus absent, as the presence of a social value message reduces fear of being perceived as racist. However, we do not find that race dissimilarity is significantly associated with non-anonymous whistleblowing intentions, irrespective of the presence of a social value message. Furthermore, in nonanonymous whistleblowing situations, potential whistleblowers have to disclose their identities to the tax authority to become eligible for a cash reward. Even when potential whistleblowers can choose the amount of a cash reward they would have to be paid in order to blow the whistle, our results show that whistleblowing intentions do not increase significantly when perpetrators and potential whistleblowers are of different races. Overall, our results suggest that the societal value of tax whistleblowing and the use of cash rewards for whistleblowing are limited by other sociological considerations.
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