Tax Complexity, Tax Salience and Tax Politics

This article considers the implications of the tax salience literature for the United Kingdom. First, the different categories, and definitions, of tax salience that have developed in the literature are reviewed, and some of the prescriptive implications of these terms are introduced. Tax salience refers, essentially, to the capacity of taxpayers to understand legislation. Thus, the potential reasons behind tax complexity and the potential beneficiaries of it are addressed. The article considers the contribution that the tax salience literature may make to existing analyses in the United Kingdom, particularly, in the (1) debate surrounding principles-based legislation and (2) context of newly formed government offices devoted, to some extent, to considering the role and value of salience. It is suggested that it is worth heeding the admonitions of Schenk, Gamage and Shanske, and others, that ‘salience’ is a layered term that should be employed with specific reference to political, economic and legal contexts. It is also acknowledged that the conclusions of some portions of the tax salience literature that legislative clarity should be included only within a list of priorities for legislative drafting, and not necessarily at the top of that list, is evocative of existing analyses of ‘principles-based drafting’ in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and elsewhere. Neither salience nor principles-based drafting have the potential, on their own, to ‘fix’ the problem of tax complexity. The article, however, considers the implications of either raising or lowering salience on the list of desirable factors in drafting, in the particular context of fostering trust between taxpayers and the state.