Does the opportunity to voice your opinion on the tax system give tax payers agency and increase tax compliance? A randomized field experiment.

This field experiment explores how providing taxpayers with voice and agency on the tax system impacts tax compliance. The field experiment is run on potentially the 100 000 smallest businesses in a Scandinavian country, with an expected sample size of 30 000. There are two treatment groups and a baseline group. The first treatment groups is given a text that signals strong voice and influence in shaping the future of the tax system. In addition, they are given several specific questions on the tax system and delivery platform, as well as open-ended comment boxes throughout the delivery platform. Then second treatment group is told that tax Norway want to simplify the tax system as well, but with less emphasis on voice, and no emphasis on influence. They are given the same questions and comment-boxes as treatment group 1. The third groups is the baseline. They are told that the tax administration wants to survey accounting skills, and are asked three questions and given one comment box in total, all of which comes at the very end of the platform, after they have filled in their tax returns. By varying the level of agency and voice, we will causally identify the effects of voice and agency on tax compliance. Tax compliance is measured by looking at taxable income, in particular operating income, operating costs, the operating margin, and in particular deductions. The smallest businesses are very heteregenous, and we will conduct heterogeneity tests for gender, region, age, type of business, income level, and date of filing the tax returns.