Behavioural Taxation

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Peter N.C. Mohr, since 7/2023
• Subject Area: Accounting and Finance
• Term: from 2018 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 399227791

The economic literature traditionally starts from the assumption that taxpayers consider taxes correctly when making their decisions. Under this assumption, taxes would simply reduce the net payoffs such as any other cost component. Obviously, if this assumption is not correct, a number of standard expectations would need to be questioned. Research addressing the deviations from rational tax-related decision making can be subsumed under the field behavioural taxation. Researchers from different disciplines, including business taxation, public finance, behavioural economics and psychology, meet in behavioural taxation to study tax-related decision making. Although a variety of topics is previously studied, to date it remains unclear how different factors known to influence tax-related decision making may interact since research thus far is fragmented and the different research fields are unconnected with each other. In a first step, researchers would thus need to systematize behavioural taxation research fields to develop a comprehensive theoretical framework of behavioural taxation. This framework will enable researchers to identify open research questions for new innovative publications and for grant applications in the field. In a second step, studies can be designed to test the framework in both experimental and empirical studies to address internal as well as external validity of results.A transfer of the literature’s findings to business-related tax topics is, thus far, only rarely realized. To study the tax-related decision making of individuals and organizations in institutional settings, a stronger focus in research should be on institutional regulation, tax law and organizational structure. This focus raises new research questions and provides behavioural taxation a new perspective for policy implications and recommendations. Interdisciplinary collaborations with researchers, practitioners, politicians and government workers can then provide meaningful suggestions for the development of future tax systems.Our objective is to establish a scientific network of primarily junior researchers dealing with the following tasks: 1) systematizing behavioural taxation research fields to develop a comprehensive framework of behavioural taxation, 2) identifying open research questions to pave the way for innovative publications and to foster the development of grant applications in the field, and 3) encouraging and maintaining interdisciplinary collaborations with researchers, practitioners and politicians to provide suggestions for adapted tax systems.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Frank Hechtner
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Professor Dr. Martin Fochmann, until 6/2023