The fines and fiscal inspections do not have an essential impact on the combating of tax evasion. The state should focus on the promotion of voluntary compliance by disseminating information about fiscal compliance. The people who see that the other members of the community pay taxes also tend to pay taxes. The findings presented by the Independent Think Tank “Expert-Grup” derive from a series of economic experiments conducted in Moldova and France. These involved over 500 persons from both of the states, IPN reports.
In the presentation of the data of the survey, “Expert-Grup” executive director Adrian Lupușor said the study was carried out in partnership with the Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova and the Experimental Economics Laboratory based in Montpellier, France. The collected data clarify the policies that can lead to dishonest behaviors among the people. The conclusions concerning tax morale in Moldova show that having the suitable set of institutions, the people in Moldova are ready to obey the fiscal law at quasi-optimal levels. In the long run, the public authorities should center on the improvement of the quality of official institutions. For example, they should ensure increased transparency in the allocation of public funds and should reduce corruption among public servants.
Besides the tax morale and the quality of institutions, the economic experiments reveal the importance of social informing. The data clearly show that the fiscal compliance decisions of people are correlated with the decisions of the other members of the group. An important finding is that the participants from Moldova are especially sensitive to negative social information. The noticing of tax evasion significantly reduces fiscal compliance. When the people know about the commission of evasion by some, they realize that they can do the same. According to the experts, it is opportune to implement the whistleblowing mechanism by encouraging citizens to report the noticed or suspected tax evasion to the fiscal authorities.
“Until now, the policies to combat tax evasion didn’t appropriately consider behavioral or psychological factors that explain the individual decisions of people to practice tax evasion. Consequently, we come with a new perspective and an innovative analytical framework concerning tax evasion by explaining this from the behavior perspective, based on economic experiments organized in the Republic of Moldova for the first time,” stated the director of “Expert-Grup”.
