Salience, the ‘S’ in the UK Behavioural Insight Team’s MINDSPACE framework, captures the idea that individuals are more likely to act on stimuli that are novel, simple and personally relevant.
A well-known behavioural science example involves boosting recycling rates simply by colour-coding bin lids. By making it visually obvious which bin was for what type of waste, the task became easier and more intuitive, leading to a 34% increase in recycling.
This insight travels well to tax policy.
Salience in tax policy
In a world flooded with information, making tax obligations more salient can significantly improve compliance.
Salience helps tax obligations rise to the top of the cognitive queue. If taxpayers are overwhelmed by complexity, cluttered messages or generic communication, they may disengage—not because they are unwilling to comply, but because the path to compliance does not stand out clearly enough.
Attention represents a vital cognitive process that directly influences preferences and decisions. Our preferences and choices can be prejudiced by focusing our visual attention on the other options.
Attention is also impacted by the number of resources required to execute a given task. Tasks can vary with respect to difficulty and, therefore, the amount of attention resources we will need to invest in completing a task. Task difficulty has been found to impact the processes involved in decision-making and judgement formulation.
My PhD research on self-employed taxpayers in Australia and Pakistan reinforces this behavioural insight. Using data from surveys and interviews, the study examined how salience, in both digital and analogue environments, influences compliance decisions.
The findings confirmed that when tax information is made simple, timely and personalised, it increases their likelihood of engaging with the system.
Australia: high in form but not always in function
In Australia, where digital-first systems are the default, salience is high in form but not always in function.
In my research, survey respondents noted that while messages from the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) arrive via email or app, the volume and repetition of those messages often dull their impact. Some described it as ‘digital noise’, a paradox where high exposure does not necessarily lead to high engagement.
Interestingly, thematic analysis highlighted clusters of terms like ‘consider’, ‘provide’, ‘resources’, and ‘comprehension’. These words point to what taxpayers are actually looking for: thoughtful guidance (consider), helpful tools or support (provide and resources), and above all, understanding (comprehension).
This pattern suggests that what makes tax communication stand out is not how often it appears, but whether it offers something practical and understandable. People are more likely to pay attention when they feel the information is tailored to help them, not just pushed at them.
The salience principle also interacts with perceptions of fairness and value.
For example, a slightly negative correlation was observed in Australia between satisfaction with digital tax systems and perceptions of whether government spending is reasonable. This suggests that even if digital engagement is high, taxpayers might not view the expenditure behind it as worthwhile, perhaps because its usefulness is not obvious.
Salience, in this case, requires not just visibility, but demonstrable value.
Pakistan: novel and welcome
In Pakistan, the findings showed a different trajectory.
There, the positive relationship between digital engagement and perceived reasonableness of tax spending suggests that when new digital tools are introduced, such as SMS reminders or online portals, they are seen as progressive and helpful. Salience here is both novel and welcome, especially when those tools help reduce the friction of dealing with a traditionally complex tax system.
The importance of communication clarity emerged repeatedly. Taxpayers in Pakistan voiced strong support for making tax content available in Urdu and regional languages. As one participant noted, ‘you have to meet people where they are, language is not just a medium, it’s a signal of respect’.
This aligns salience with the messenger principle in MINDSPACE: what is said matters less than who says it and how. When messages are culturally resonant and practically accessible, their behavioural impact grows.
This was also observed in Australia. Australian respondents stressed the importance of plain language communication in tax documents and ATO notices. Several noted that legalistic or overly formal language led to confusion, while simplified, clearly explained summaries made them feel more capable of engaging with the tax system.
Respondents in both countries linked tax complexity to cognitive overload. Thematic analyses across both datasets identified procedural complexity as a barrier to compliance, one that salience could help overcome.
When tax systems are difficult to navigate, the burden of interpretation shifts to the taxpayer. But when systems are intuitive and well-timed, salience makes obligations feel achievable, not abstract.
Several participants advocated for centralised, user-friendly portals to improve the digital tax experience. For example, one Pakistani respondent suggested that the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) revamp its website to be ‘as easy as ordering food online’.
A digital interface that includes a personalised dashboard, real-time updates, and visual cues would reflect both the salience and defaults principles, guiding users through their tax journey with minimal friction.
Meanwhile, digital nudges like SMS alerts or mobile apps can help prompt taxpayer action but only if timed well. Research has shown that nudges sent too early are forgotten, while those sent too late do not leave room for action. In both countries, respondents expressed a preference for nudges that arrived close to the lodgement date, preferably with tailored reminders that referenced their previous activity.
Again, salience is not just about showing up. It is about showing up at the right time, in the right voice, with the right message.
Lessons
Ultimately, salience in tax policy is about more than making things bright, clickable or frequent. It is about clarity, timing, and trust.
My research suggests that self-employed taxpayers respond best when tax obligations are not only visible, but also easy to understand, culturally familiar, and tied to systems they already use. In that context, salience becomes more than a behavioural principle, it becomes a lever for institutional credibility.
As tax authorities increasingly look to behavioural science to inform design and delivery, salience offers a powerful starting point. But its effectiveness depends on thoughtful application.
Authorities must simplify, personalise, and humanise their communication strategies, not just digitalise them. If done right, salience does not just help taxpayers notice their obligations. It helps them believe those obligations matter.
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