The relationship between tax payer and tax officer: How to build trust in a tax compliance perspective

The main theoretical model of fiscal psychology, the "Slippery Slope Framework", assumes that tax compliance relies on two essential dimensions: power of tax authorities and trust on fiscal institutions. Trust, in particular, shapes voluntary (rather than enforced) compliance and a synergistic climate of cooperation between taxpayers and fiscal authority. The present study aims to examine the topic of trust on fiscal authorities, by presenting one of the first exploration on the trust building process during interactions between taxpayer and fiscal authority. Through an IPA (Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis) approach and interviewing taxpayers after a meeting with a tax officer, in the present research we identified the factors (i.e. taxpayers' knowledge, the power and informational fairness management by authority, and the personalization of tax officer's styles of relationship), that are crucial at different levels of analysis: micro (the interaction between taxpayer and tax officer), intermediate (the Tax Return Agency's representations) and macro (the law and fiscal context).