Lying to the Taxman

Last registered on June 19, 2023

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Lying to the Taxman
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0010576
Initial registration date
December 02, 2022

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
December 13, 2022, 10:15 PM EST

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Last updated
June 19, 2023, 1:55 PM EDT

Last updated is the most recent time when changes to the trial's registration were published.

Locations

Primary Investigator

Affiliation

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Affiliation

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2022-12-03
End date
2023-12-31
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We study how the presence of a tax official impacts taxpayers' willingness to declare noncompliance.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Hoy, Christopher and Jonathan Karver. 2023. "Lying to the Taxman." AEA RCT Registry. June 19. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.10576-1.1
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2022-12-05
Intervention End Date
2022-12-23

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Our primary outcomes of interest are based on the following questions in the survey: Q12, Q13b, Q13c, Q14, Q15, Q19, Q20a, Q20b, Q20c, Q20d
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Our secondary outcomes of interest are based on the following questions in the survey: Q13a, Q13d, Q13e, Q13f, Q13g, Q13h, Q13i, Q13o, Q13p, Q13u, Q13v, Q13y, Q16a, Q16b, Q17b, Q18, Q21
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We will conduct a study about the drivers of willingness to pay tax with 1200 micro, small and medium sized firms across a series of urban and peri-urban locations in a medium sized developing country. Tax officials will accompany survey enumerators and be present during the interviews at a randomly selected subset of wards. In addition, the survey will include a randomized survey experiment examining how the progressivity of taxes influences people's willingness to pay tax.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
Randomization was done on STATA using the randtreat command.

Specifically the following STATA code was used (where Region_num denotes the region where the survey will take place, District_num denotes the district where the survey will take place and Setting_num denotes whether the survey will occur in a urban or peri urban location):
randtreat, generate(treatment) replace strata(Region_num District_num Setting_num) mult(2) misfits(global) setseed(12345)
Randomization Unit
Ward
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
121 wards
Sample size: planned number of observations
604 respondents in the treatment group and 596 respondents in the control group.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
61 treatment wards and 60 control wards
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Around 10 percentage points on a binary outcome. This is based on the following STATA code: sampsi 0.65 0.75, power (0.8) alpha (0.05) sampclus, obs (10) rho (0.08)
Supporting Documents and Materials

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IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials