Tax Salience: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

This study provides an understanding of tax salience through the review of the literature. The tax salience refers to the prominence and visibility of the taxes and their influence over the taxpayer’s behavior. This study reviews the background literature on tax salience, how the tax policy is influenced by it, and the reaction of consumer behavior towards tax salience. The study uses the review of literature as a research methodology. The study uses the review strategy of narrative review by synthesizing, organizing, and assembling the earlier literature related to tax salience. The google scholar database was used to retrieve relevant studies for the narrative review. The time period of the key studies is mainly from 1987 to 2023. The paper concludes that tax salience despite being a relatively young field of economics has a pivotal role in influencing tax policies and consumer behavior. This study provides guidelines for future researchers with respect to how the consumer reacts to salience of taxation. For the policy framework it can be mandated that the policy makers in order to optimize the tax systems should not overlook the concept and area of tax salience. Since the tax salience has a significant role in influencing and shaping the consumer behavior.

Keywords

• tax salience, tax policy, consumer behaviour