理解税收特赦参与行为：来自自然田野实验的证据

中文摘要

政府经常采用部分豁免政策来促使债务偿还并增加隐性债务的披露。尽管此类特赦十分普遍，但其成效如何、对哪些人有效以及为何有效，在很大程度上仍不清楚。我们与多米尼加共和国税务局合作设计了一项自然田野实验，以了解助推措施是否、以及哪些类型的助推措施能够提高税收特赦的参与率和偿还率。我们的田野实验涵盖125,452名纳税人，其已知欠税合计相当于国内生产总值（GDP）的5.5%；实验检验了税务局在特赦期间发送的信息对债务偿还和披露的影响，这些信息分别强调威慑性法律、对未来特赦的信念以及税收道德。重要的是，我们发现了较大的短期效应——我们最有效的处理使已知债务的偿还额增加了25%，隐性债务的偿还额增加了48%——而这些效应仅被随后纳税额的下降轻微抵消。

Abstract

Governments often use partial forgiveness policy to induce debt repayments and increase the disclosure of hidden debts. While ubiquitous, much remains unknown about how well these amnesties work, for whom, and why. We partnered with the Dominican Republic Tax Authority to design a natural field experiment to understand whether, and what types of, nudges can increase amnesty take-up and repayment. Our field experiment, which covers 125,452 taxpayers collectively owing 5.5% of GDP in known debt, tests the impact of messages from the tax authority during an amnesty that highlight deterrence laws, beliefs about future amnesties, and tax morale messages for debt payment and disclosure. Importantly, we find large short-run effects – our most effective treatment increased payments of known debt by 25% and hidden debt by 48% – that are only slightly undone by reductions in subsequent tax payments.