Impact of Behaviour Nudges on Tax Compliance: Age as a Factor in Municipalities in the Republic of North Macedonia

Abstract

We examine the effects of a tax behaviour nudging experiment on non-compliant property taxpayers in three Macedonian municipalities. The results indicate that on average the deterrence message was almost 6 percentage points more effective for non-compliant taxpayers when compared to the control group, while the social norm message and public good message were on average 4.4 and 3.2 percentage points more effective when compared with the control group, respectively. Furthermore, age as a variable is significant and negatively associated with tax compliance behaviour in one of the three municipalities. Finally, we recommend the experiment’s approach to policymakers as effective, while being inexpensive and not requiring legislative changes.