What are the dynamics underlying the decisionmaking and compliance patterns of taxpayers? What accounts for how individuals go about making choices and handling legal procedures and rules? Limitations on available data for taxpayer research have hampered theory development and testing on such issues. A major objective of Dr. Carroll's research is to examine a new source of information about taxpayer behavior that is close to the behavior itself and the thoughts of taxpayers. His study employs intensive process-tracing techniques (interviews, diaries, and verbal protocols) to provide systematic detail about subjective perceptions and the cognitive processes involved in translating perceptions into behavior. From these basic but unique data on taxpayer perceptions, values, and strategies, adaptive models of taxpayer compliance can be developed that integrate both self-interest and normative factors. Dr. Carroll's research capitalizes on the unique research opportunity provided by one of the most significant changes ever introduced in income tax law. The attention to taxpaying necessitated by the 1986 Tax Reform Act makes it extremely likely that taxpayers will surface and reconsider subjective perceptions and decision strategies that are unusually routine. The development of decision models of taxpaying will contribute generally to the explication of theory in compliance and decision research and specifically to our understanding of taxpayer compliance and its sensitivity to policy options.
