When compliance is not the solution but the problem: from changes in law to changes in attitude
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McBarnet, Doreen
Australian National University. Centre for Tax System Integrity
Australian Taxation Office
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Centre for Tax System Integrity (CTSI), Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University
Australian Taxation Office
Australian Taxation Office
Abstract
The task of the Centre for Tax System Integrity is to extend understanding of how and
why cooperation and contestation occur within the tax system. This goal presupposes a
clear distinction between cooperation and contestation. In practice, however, this
distinction may be open to creative management, demonstrated clearly in the practice of
‘creative compliance’.
Taxpayer compliance with tax law may seem to fall, by definition, into the category of
cooperation with the tax system. Indeed, securing compliance with the law is the driving
force behind the compliance model of enforcement (Ayres & Braithwaite, 1992) which
has been adopted by the Australian Taxation Office (Tax Office) and other regulatory
agencies (Hawkins, 1984). Securing compliance is seen as the key, as the solution to the
regulatory problem of making policy effective in practice.
Yet compliance with the law can in practice be used, and used very effectively, to
frustrate tax policy. This working paper focuses on the issue of compliance, and on the
Tax Office’s compliance model of enforcement. It asks: what happens to the compliance
model when compliance is not the solution but the problem?
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Working/Technical Paper
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