Abstract (eng)
This paper examines the effects of the perceived power of the Austrian government and the trust towards it on tax compliance and evasion with the aim to empirically research the Slippery Slope Framework.
In this regard, a priming text was created to simulate four conditions of the taxpayers’ perceived trust in the government and the government’s power. The created groups were high power - high trust, low power – high trust, high power – low trust and low trust – low power. A media based priming text was used. The priming was successfully achieved. Consistent with the assumptions suggested by the Slippery Slope Framework power showed a significant positive effect on enforced tax compliance. Regarding voluntary compliance and trust, the framework’s assumption was not met. As expected, the statistical evaluation showed no significant effect of power and trust on intended tax compliance. The results indicate a significant negative correlation between voluntary compliance and tax evasion and a negative but not significant correlation between enforced compliance and tax evasion. Age, gender and nationality were also taken to consideration with interesting results. The inclination both to evade taxes and to show a higher voluntary tax compliance grows with the taxpayers’ age. Female participants showed a higher voluntary as well as enforced compliance than the male ones. However, the male participants showed a higher intended tax compliance. German taxpayers in Austria indicated a higher tendency to tax evasion than Austrian taxpayers.