Voluntary versus enforced tax compliance: empirical evidence for the “slippery slope” framework

The “slippery slope” framework is an alternative approach for research in tax compliance that suggests two key variables to obtain taxpayers’ compliance: trust and power. Furthermore, two forms of compliance are distinguished. It is hypothesized that voluntary compliance depends primarily on trust in authorities, whereas enforced compliance is a function of the power attributed to authorities. Using a large data set (N = 3,071) on taxpayers from Austria, the United Kingdom, and the Czech Republic, these hypotheses could be confirmed. Furthermore, whereas voluntary compliance seems to be positively related to age and education, enforced compliance is negatively related to education.