Tax aversion as an implicit phenomenon

Abstract

The term “tax aversion” refers to a dislike of taxes which is stronger than the reaction to other types of payments. Although many scholars have found that the word “tax” elicits negative feelings, contrasting findings have been obtained when tax aversion has been measured as an explicit tendency. The present study suggests a complementary perspective on tax aversion, suggesting that tax aversion might operate as both a latent phenomenon and an explicit propensity. We propose that tax aversion may stem from an inner predisposition rather than an explicit and rational attitude. Such intuition drove the present research, aimed at measuring tax aversion at an implicit level and examining the relationship between implicit, explicit, and behavioral measures of tax aversion. Across three studies, we employed the Implicit Association Test (IAT) alongside traditional measures to explore implicit tax aversion and its behavioral implications. The novelty of this research lies in the use of the IAT to measure implicit tax aversion, examining its relationship with explicit measures, such as the TAX-I (Kirchler & Wahl, 2010), as well as with the behavioral outcomes of tax aversion based on the study conducted by Sussman and Olivola (2011). Consistent with our hypothesis, the findings support the idea that tax aversion can operate as a latent phenomenon. Furthermore, the implicit hostility measured through the IAT appears to be linked to the behavioral outcomes of tax aversion; contrarily, no relationship was found with explicit tax-related attitudes.