Quality of Service and Tax compliance

Last registered on March 15, 2024
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Quality of Service and Tax compliance
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0013156
Initial registration date
March 08, 2024

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
March 15, 2024, 6:33 PM EDT

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

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Luis Fernando Gamboa
Affiliation
DIAN
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Luis Carlos Reyes
PI Affiliation
Dian
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2024-03-01
End date
2024-09-30
Keywords
Governance, Other
Additional Keywords
tax compliance, revenue
JEL code(s)
H25, H26, C93
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Strengthening the relationship between taxpayers and the tax authority is one of the mechanisms to increase the agency's efficiency and reduce the risk of tax evasion. The main objective of this trial is to identify changes in the tax compliance generated by a modification of the staff.to-taxpayer ratio.

The intervention aims to encourage tax compliance by increasing the staff.to-taxpayer ratio by having a closer treatment wich goes beyond actins as a "police" but also encouraging to the facilitation of tax procedures. This trial is focused in the biggest cities in Colombia for an initial period of 6 months and it randomizes taxpayers and staff.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Gamboa, Luis Fernando and Luis Carlos Reyes. 2024. "Quality of Service and Tax compliance." AEA RCT Registry. March 15. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.13156-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
One of the main challenges for the tax authorities consist of having the most accurate set of tools to carry out their task of collecting taxes in accordance with the current Tax Law. In developing countries, there are scarse resources to increase revenue and most of the incomes are highly concentrated.
The main objective of this trial is to evaluate the existence of changes in the tax behavior (tax compliance) generated by a modification of the user service model by increasing the staff-to-taxpayer ratio. Under this new scheme, a random sample of big taxpayers according to their wealth are covered by exclusive personnel to assist their compliance and, consequently it migh generate changes in tax variables (renenues, compliance, among others). In addition, to the taxpayers randomiztion, the staf of support is also randomized to them.
Intervention Start Date
2024-03-01
Intervention End Date
2024-09-30

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Tax compliance
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
Tax compliance will be measured through:
a. Changes in income tax revenue; b. Changes on value-added tax revenue; c. Changes in interest and sanctions

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Design
In the first stage, we select the fifth highest cities in Colombia according to tax revenues and we extract a sample of the biggest 3000 taxpayers (firms and individuals located in these cities. In the second stage, we allocate the staff to these taxpayers in order to provide a closer assistance

Randomization and treatment

Our sample of taxpayers is obtained using stratified random sampling performed by city and by quintile of total tax paid during the previous taxable year.
Then, we also randomize the allocation of tax staff to this set to taxpayers.

The treatment
There is one treatment which consists of providing more exclusive support in terms of the account executives assigned by the tax agency to the selected companies.


Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
We will assign treatment status using a computer-based random number generation process
Randomization Unit
The level of randomization is the taxpayer
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
950 taxpayers
Sample size: planned number of observations
950 taxpayers
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
The treatment includes 540 taxpayers and the control group is about 410 taxpayers
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan