Social Tax Discontent and Individual Tax Avoidance

• 成果类型: Article; Early Access
• 署名作者: Belnap, Andrew; Standridge, Kevin R.; Thornock, Jacob R.; Williams, Braden
• 署名单位: University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin; University of Arizona; Brigham Young University
• 刊物名称: ACCOUNTING REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0001-4826; 1558-7967
• DOI: 10.2308/TAR-2023-0689
• 发表日期: 2026-08-12
• 关键词: social tax discontent; Tax avoidance; social norms; tax compliance; Social media; Twitter.; ENFORCEMENT; evasion

摘要

This study examines the relation between exposure to social tax discontent-public expressions of frustration about others' tax avoidance on social media-and individual tax avoidance. Economic and psychological theories predict bidirectional effects: discontent may reduce avoidance by inducing internal sanctions (e.g., shame and guilt) or increase avoidance by normalizing noncompliance through perceived prevalence. Using a novel, large-scale measure of tax discontent derived from geolocated Twitter data and a language classification model, we find that increases in social tax discontent are associated with reductions in estimated tax avoidance. The effect is stronger among high-income groups, in response to tweets targeting wealthy individuals, and in areas with higher political engagement and social media activity. Our results reinforce the importance of taxpayers' social and behavioral motivations and suggest that jurisdictions' efforts to manage taxpayer beliefs and leverage social norms can act as a complementary tool to traditional enforcement.