Mental accounting in tax liabilities

Abstract

Mental accounting refers to a set of cognitive processes in which people code, categorize and evaluate money depending on where it came from and what they are going to spend it on, and this influences the way they make decisions. The concept of mental accounting violates the principles of standard economic theories, which consider money to be fungible or interchangeable. When people mentally account, they prefer to keep accounts separate and not to move money from one mental account to another. The current study aimed to investigate how people mentally account by designing a tax compliance laboratory experiment and using a variety of scenarios. In the first scenario, which involved different tax rate variations, participants were asked to pay tax on their earned and capital incomes. The results showed that participants formed separate mental accounts and treated their earned and capital incomes differently. Specifically, when faced with high tax rates of 60%, tax evasion was significantly higher for earned (labour) incomes compared to capital incomes. This willingness to cheat in order to protect labour income, suggests that individuals value their earned income more compared to income received from a given endowment (capital income). Interestingly, in subsequent scenarios involving different audit probabilities and fine rates, no mental accounting effects were found. In conclusion, this study provides initial experimental insights into the effects of mental accounting on taxpayer’s compliance, but further research is needed to explain nuanced findings and investigate tax decisions for different reference points and other sources of income.