The Effect of Federal Income Tax Law Reading Complexity on Students' Task Performance.

Abstract The problems caused by the Income tax law's complexity have been discussed by academics, educators, government officials, lawyers, accountants, and taxpayers. Accounting and taxation educators, in particular, are acutely aware of the educational problems Introduced by tax law complexity. The tax law's complexity may be attributable to many factors. The present study examines the effect of one of these factors, reading complexity, on students' task performance. A student lab experiment was conducted in which 89 subjects were randomly assigned to four experimental conditions. The subjects received either a Code reading or a Commentary reading covering a revised code section enacted by the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. The subjects answered 15 questions about the reading and rated the complexity of the reading on five dimensions. The subjects assigned to the Code reading had significantly fewer correct responses and took significantly longer to answer the experimental questions than subjects assigned to the Commentary reading. Also, the Code reading was perceived to be significantly more complex than the Commentary reading.