Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/234673 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Series/Report no.: 
IDB Working Paper Series No. IDB-WP-01084
Publisher: 
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Washington, DC
Abstract: 
Most tax agencies use letters as the method of communicating with taxpayers. Still, other technologies exist that could be more effective. This paper reports the results of a field experiment conducted by the National Tax Agency of Colombia (DIAN), using phone calls to reduce tax delinquencies. DIAN randomly assigned 34,000 tax debtors to a phone call operation using a fixed script to discuss existing debts and invite taxpayers to a meeting at the local tax agency oce. Phone calls were very effective in increasing collection of unpaid taxes. Conditional on the phone call being made, the effect on the treatment is about 25 percentage points higher than the control group (about a five-fold increase). We also nd suggestive evidence that the personal interaction seems to be an important channel for explaining taxpayers' behavior. Faced with a tax agent, taxpayers tend to commit to attending the meeting and paying the tax owed. However, many taxpayers who commit do not make payment effective. The findings complement a nascent literature that shows that there are plenty of gains from innovating in communication strategy. They also indicate that personal interactions are important, but they have to be paired with easy-to-follow and immediate actions. Paying taxes is easier said than done.
Subjects: 
Tax compliance
Methods of communication
Evasion
Property tax
Phone calls
Reminders
Plan making
Randomized control trial
Behavioral economics
JEL: 
C93
H42
H23
D62
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-nd Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.