Nudging Toward Compliance: The Power of Behavioral Insights

Learning Objectives

• To identify at least six ways BI is being used to nudge citizens, consumers, and taxpayers towards desired actions and improve their experience.
• To summarize at least 4 reasons why people are not always rational, and why their decisions are often driven by emotions, not careful economic analysis.
• To discuss 7 competing visions within the IRS on how BI should be used (or not) to increase compliance. 
• To list at least 8 BI strategies that can be used to influence taxpayer behavior and improve persuasion.
• To restate at least 10 ways BI can be used in the wording and graphic design and layout of tax forms to deter non-compliance

Course Description

Join us for an eye-opening CPE webinar on how the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is using Behavioral Insights (BI) to drive compliance, positively impact taxpayer engagement, and reduce taxpayer burden. This cross-discipline, open-minded science of understanding how people behave and why they act as they do is increasingly being used worldwide by organizations to better understand the behaviors of their customers and citizens to guide and nudge them towards desired actions or to improve their experience.

In this course, you will identify ways BI is being used to nudge citizens, consumers, and taxpayers towards desired actions and improve their experience. You will also summarize reasons why people are not always rational and why their decisions are often driven by emotions, not careful economic analysis. Plus, you will explore competing visions within the IRS on how BI should be used (or not) to increase compliance.

Major topics covered in this online webinar:

• Behavioral Insights (BI) Fundamentals
• Edward Bernays: The Father of BI
• How BI is used in social media and the consumer economy
• The power of nudging
• How BI is being used in tax administrations around the world
• BI tax experiments at the IRS
• Leading BI proposals for the IRS
• How to apply BI principles in your accounting operations

This by Garrett Wasny is designed for practitioners who want to better understand how BI is best tested and used within the IRS to improve the taxpayer experience. You'll also discover how BI can be applied by practitioners in their operations and workflow to improve customer engagement and satisfaction.

Overview

• What are behavioral insights (BI)?

  11 mins
• Foundational principles of behavioral insights

  24 mins
• Rule of three effect

  35 mins
• UK Mindspace

  50 mins
• Let's get personal

  67 mins
• Fan-TAS-tic Correspondence

  81 mins
• Introduce new product for tax preparers

  103 mins