Contextual Features of Tax Decision‐Making Settings

Prior research in psychology and accounting suggests that features of the decision‐making task and context affect information processing, yet the decision‐making context is often ignored in tax judgment and decision‐making research. Two primary decision contexts in the tax setting are planning and compliance. If these two contexts differ on significant features, the information processing of tax professionals in the settings also is likely to differ. An analysis of the characteristics of tax planning and compliance contexts suggests that planning problems are generally characterized by greater complexity, ambiguity, and justifiability demands than are compliance problems. Experienced tax professionals' knowledge of these differences in complexity, ambiguity, and justifiability demands of problems in the planning and compliance contexts was tested in an experiment in which decision‐making context was manipulated. Each participant rated the complexity, ambiguity, and justifiability demands of six research cases. As predicted, participants in the planning condition rated the cases as higher in complexity, ambiguity, and justifiability demands than did participants in the compliance condition. Behavioral implications of these differences were demonstrated in that managers in the planning context budgeted significantly more time for staff to complete tax research than did those in the compliance context.