Manipulation of human mind as dominant strategy in achieving tax compliance

Effective management is not possible without a certain ideology (socialization) to facilitate the achievement of a superior meaningful goal, where manipulation often occurs as technique / strategy of achievement. The purpose of this paper is to show techniques in achieving tax compliance, to determine the existing manifestation of manipulation, to discuss the ethics of these techniques and to offer alternative techniques in solving tax compliance. The first aim of this paper is to indicate effective possibilities of achieving willingness to unpopular action (tax compliance) by means of a number of manipulative strategies / techniques. The second aim of this paper is to discuss the ethical justification of application of manipulation strategies / techniques and the necessity of application of ethically friendly techniques. The third aim of this paper is to offer solutions for achieving ethically correct tax compliance. The main method used in this paper is a method of personal and collective experience in collecting data on manipulations, analysis, synthesis, insight and reasoning. Paper results showed: a) In reality, there are numerous forms of manipulations of human mind that are used / can be used to achieve tax compliance that is explained in detail in this paper. b) The resistance of some citizens to the income tax could be reduced by eliminating sense of injustice and manipulation and thus strengthen tax morale. c) By introducing some non-manipulation techniques and thus creating ethical social climate and culture (e.g. the transparency of public expenditure, increase of meaningfulness and justification in taxpaying, conscious resistance to manipulation, promotion of spiritual values of truth and proper behavior - creation of the so-called atmosphere of psychological contract), decrease of resistance to income tax is possible.