Long Term Treatment Effects of Nudges on Small Businesses Tax Compliance Behaviour in Indonesia

Last registered on February 18, 2026
View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Long Term Treatment Effects of Nudges on Small Businesses Tax Compliance Behaviour in Indonesia
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0010721
Initial registration date
January 02, 2023

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
January 03, 2023, 5:34 PM EST

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

Last updated
February 18, 2026, 8:44 PM EST

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

Locations

Country
Indonesia
Region
North Jakarta, South Sumatera, Nusa Tenggara

Primary Investigator

Name
Agung Satyadini
Affiliation
DGT
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Mathias Sinning
PI Affiliation
ANU
Contact Investigator
PI Name
Sarah Dong
PI Affiliation
ANU
Contact Investigator

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2021-12-01
End date
2023-03-31
Keywords
Behavior, Governance, Other
Additional Keywords
tax compliance, small businesses
JEL code(s)
C93, H25, H26
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial is based on or builds upon one or more prior RCTs.
Abstract
The aim of this trial is to investigate the long-term compliance behaviour of small businesses in Indonesia. More specifically, the trial analyses the long-term compliance effects of three treatment letters, i.e., deterrence, literacy, and public goods provision letters. The target population consists of approximately 12,000 small businesses – those with annual turnover less than IDR4.8 billion from the period of 2017 to 2019. Three treatments will be tested: (1) deterrence letter, which highlights the submission deadline, administrative late-filing penalty IDR100,000, utilisation of computerised audit, the possibility of utilisation computerised audit and further enforcement actions towards non-compliers; (2) literacy letter, in which we simplify the letters, adopts less-formal style letter, emphasizes the simple guidance on how to pay and report taxes, and attaches the QR code to access official mobile apps and DGT webpage; (3) public goods provision letter, which highlights the taxpayer’s contribution for national budget, particularly for COVID-19 expenditure and future generation education. The treatments will be compared to a control group consisting of individuals who are received no letters. About 12,000 small businesses were randomly assigned to the four groups (about 3,000 individuals to each group).
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Dong, Sarah, Agung Satyadini and Mathias Sinning. 2026. "Long Term Treatment Effects of Nudges on Small Businesses Tax Compliance Behaviour in Indonesia." AEA RCT Registry. February 18. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.10721-1.4
Sponsors & Partners

Sponsors

Partner

Name
Directorate General of Taxation
Type
government
URL
https://pajak.go.d
Name
Ministry of Finance of The Republic of Indonesia
Type
government
URL
https://kemenkeu.go.id
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Three treatments will be tested: (1) Treatment 1: "deterrence letter", which highlights the submission deadline, administrative late-filing penalty IDR100,000, utilisation of computerised audit, the possibility of utilisation computerised audit and further enforcement actions towards non-compliers; (2) Treatment 2: "literacy letter", in which we simplify the letters, adopts less-formal style letter, emphasizes the simple guidance on how to pay and report taxes, and attaches the QR code to access official mobile apps and DGT webpage; (3) Treatment 3: "public goods provision letter", which highlights the taxpayer’s contribution for national budget, particularly for COVID-19 expenditure and future generation education. The control group consists of individuals who are not received letters from the DGT. Copies of sample letters and emails are attached in "Docs & Materials" of this registration.
Intervention (Hidden)
Intervention Start Date
2021-12-01
Intervention End Date
2023-03-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
The outcome measures consist of (1) a dummy indicating tax returns filing, (2) a dummy indicating non-zero payment, (3) a dummy indicating timely filing, (4) a dummy indi- cating both non-zero payment and timely filing, (5) a dummy indicating improvement in tax filing, which derived from the indicator of Compliance Risk Management (CRM) dashboard – a combination assessment score between taxpayer’s fiscal importance and risks 10, (6) a dummy indicating electronic payment, whether taxpayers utilised e-billing; (7) number of inbound communications to tax office, a log contact from taxpayer in the following month; and (8) amount of tax payment.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
About 12,000 individuals were randomly assigned to three treatment groups and a control group (about 3,000 individuals were assigned to each group).
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
The full de-identified population was provided by the DGT. Each case was randomly assigned to one of the treatment groups or the control group within each stratum. This technique provided an even distribution of taxpayers across groups based on their baseline characteristics. Randomization was performed using a random variable generator in STATA and a random selection of the seed. For stratified randomisation, the user-written command ’randtreat’ version 1.4 was utilised.
Randomization Unit
individual taxpayers
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
12,000 taxpayers.
Sample size: planned number of observations
12,000 taxpayers.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
12,000 taxpayers.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials

Documents

Document Name
trial letters and flyers
Document Type
survey_instrument
Document Description
Three treatments letters and flyers: (1) Treatment 1: "deterrence letter", which highlights the submission deadline, administrative late-filing penalty IDR100,000, utilisation of computerised audit, the possibility of utilisation computerised audit and further enforcement actions towards non-compliers; (2) Treatment 2: "literacy letter", in which we simplify the letters, adopts less-formal style letter, emphasizes the simple guidance on how to pay and report taxes, and attaches the QR code to access official mobile apps and DGT webpage; (3) Treatment 3: "public goods provision letter", which highlights the taxpayer’s contribution for national budget, particularly for COVID-19 expenditure and future generation education.
File
trial letters and flyers

MD5: 8f71e956dff0d9e8ce19badd4c84bce6

SHA1: 6fe3326305c68edd62434b17c21a3eff6abb5bed

Uploaded At: January 02, 2023

IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Australian National University Human Ethics Committee
IRB Approval Date
2021-09-06
IRB Approval Number
2021/508
Analysis Plan

Analysis Plan Documents

Pre-Analysis Plan

MD5: ac1da06986052704518cd19ed7e7c921

SHA1: 680bb27005405ca503db41469464faafaf301230

Uploaded At: February 17, 2023

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