Maryam Bathaei Javareshk, Briony D. Pulford, Eva M. Krockow
{"title":"税负中的心理会计","authors":"Maryam Bathaei Javareshk, Briony D. Pulford, Eva M. Krockow","doi":"10.1007/s40622-024-00385-0","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>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.</p>","PeriodicalId":43923,"journal":{"name":"Decision","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Mental accounting in tax liabilities\",\"authors\":\"Maryam Bathaei Javareshk, Briony D. Pulford, Eva M. Krockow\",\"doi\":\"10.1007/s40622-024-00385-0\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<p>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.</p>\",\"PeriodicalId\":43923,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Decision\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":1.5000,\"publicationDate\":\"2024-05-24\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Decision\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.1007/s40622-024-00385-0\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q3\",\"JCRName\":\"MANAGEMENT\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Decision","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s40622-024-00385-0","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"MANAGEMENT","Score":null,"Total":0}
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.
期刊介绍:
The aim of the Journal, Decision, is to publish qualitative, quantitative, survey-based, simulation-based research articles at the national and sub-national levels. While there is no stated regional focus of the journal, we are more interested in examining if and how individuals, firms and governments in emerging economies may make decisions differently. Published for the management scholars, business executives and managers, the Journal aims to advance the management research by publishing empirically and theoretically grounded articles in management decision making process. The Editors aim to provide an efficient and high-quality review process to the authors.
The Journal accepts submissions in several formats such as original research papers, case studies, review articles and book reviews (book reviews are only by invitation).
The Journal welcomes research-based, original and insightful articles on organizational, individual, socio-economic-political, environmental decision making with relevance to theory and practice of business. It also focusses on the managerial decision-making challenges in private, public, private-public partnership and non-profit organizations. The Journal also encourages case studies that provide a rich description of the business or societal contexts in managerial decision-making process including areas – but not limited to – conflict over natural resources, product innovation and copyright laws, legislative or policy change, socio-technical embedding of financial markets, particularly in developing economy, an ethnographic understanding of relations at a workplace, or social network in marketing management, etc.
Research topics covered in the Journal include (but not limited to):
Finance and Accounting
Organizational Theory and Behavior
Decision Science
Public Policy-Economic Insights
Operation Management
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Information Technology and Systems Management
Optimization and Modelling
Supply Chain Management
Data Analytics
Marketing Management
Human Resource Management