Paying taxes feels good?

New Scientist:

Paying taxes feels good, say researchers.

The surprising discovery, based on brain scans, can also predict which people are most likely to donate cash to charity.

Bill Harbaugh at the University of Oregon in Eugene, US, and colleagues gave 19 female university students $100, and told them some of this money would have to go towards taxes.

Each volunteer then read a series of 60 separate taxation scenarios involving $0 to $45 in taxes, knowing that one of the scenarios would be selected at random and the related amount be subtracted from their $100.

As the participants viewed the tax scenarios, their brains were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Surprisingly, whenever the students read the taxation scenarios, scientists saw a spike in activity within two of the brain's reward centres – the nucleus accumbens and caudate nucleus.

Harbaugh says that people probably like paying taxes more than they admit. He believes the results of his new study help explain the widespread compliance with tax laws. "We like to complain about it, but based on what we do, we are not as opposed to it as we like to say," Harbaugh says.

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This test starts with a major flaw. Most people don't have money just handed to them. they have to earn it and they have other obligations like food and shelter that they are responsible for. Under those circumstances the tax money is taking away from other needs or wants they may have. I know paying property taxes or income taxes are to events I look forward to. When the payment is made, there is a feeling of relief that I want have to do the unpleasant taxk again for a few months.