Abstract The article presents summaries of articles published in the March 1997 issue of The Journal of the American Taxation Association. The article "A Study of the Effect of Taxpayer Risk perceptions on Ambiguous Compliance Decisions," by Anne L. Christensen and Peggy A. Hite presents a study to understand the factors that lead taxpayers to engage in risky or non-compliant behavior. A mail survey was sent to 1200 middle to upper income individuals throughout the U.S. and 466 questionnaires were completed and returned. The respondents were asked to read a scenario about an ambiguous tax situation and indicate how they would report the item on their tax returns. The results of this study indicate that taxpayers' a priori risk propensities influence their reporting decisions. In addition, taxpayers' risk perceptions differ for income and deduction items, and those differences do influence tax reporting choices. This research provides evidence that taxpayers' risk perceptions differ for ambiguous income and deduction items and those differences in perceptions do affect taxpayers' decisions.
A 1997 study studied this question.