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Behavioural interventions in tax policy as an example of efficacious evidence-based policy
Abstract
RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: Using the example of interventions aimed at improving tax compliance, this article shows how policies inspired by behavioural insights fit into the aspirational ideal of evidence-based policy and how they manage to overcome the fundamental limitations inherent in this ideal.
THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: Possibilities for real-life application of evidence-based policies are limited, but behaviourally inspired policies are a variant of evidence-based policies that can be successfully implemented without causing major controversy and achieve policy objectives.
THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The article first reconstructs how evidence-based policies came to be equated with good public policies and why they failed to deliver on the promise of more rational policy that was behind them. The reason is that the political process faces not only the uncertainty, which can sometimes be remedied by the evidence provided by scientists. Above all, it is a process of decision-making in situations of ambiguity, where there are many competing ways of understanding a given problem. Evidence-based policies most often ignore the latter problem, resulting in a dispute that cannot be removed from the policy-making process. The second part of the article presents the application of behavioural inspiration in interventions aimed at improving tax compliance by taxpayers. Finally, the third part analyses how tax policy measures based on behavioural research fit into the ideal of evidence-based policy and explains their success.
RESEARCH RESULTS: Behavioural interventions are effective in achieving their intended goals by increasing the propensity to pay taxes. The recommendations of researchers are relatively readily implemented by decision-makers in the tax administration, and therefore behavioural interventions in tax policy are a form of evidence-based public policy that effectively bridges the gap that usually separates scientific evidence and actual public policy implementation.
CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS: Evidence-based policy proves effective where decision-makers and researchers jointly manage to minimise potential of conflict and complexity within the policymaking process.
Keywords
tax policy ; tax compliance ; applied behavioural science ; behavioural public policies ; evidence-based policy
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