Pressure Without Price? Perceived Fiscal Pressure and Compensatory Consumption in VAT Discourse

Public discourse around value-added tax (VAT) policy can shape consumer behaviour not only through realised price exposure but also through perception-driven responses in digitally mediated information environments. This study investigates whether perceived fiscal pressure arising from value-added tax discourse is associated with compensatory consumption among Indonesian Generation Z consumers, and whether financial anxiety functions as a key transmission mechanism, while also assessing the role of economic pessimism as a potential boundary condition. The study uses a cross-sectional online survey of 300 urban Indonesian Generation Z respondents with verified awareness of the value-added tax discourse and estimates a partial least squares structural equation model with bootstrapping. The results show that perceived fiscal pressure is strongly and positively associated with financial anxiety, and financial anxiety is positively associated with compensatory consumption. Mediation testing indicates a significant indirect effect of perceived fiscal pressure on compensatory consumption through financial anxiety, while a remaining direct association also persists, consistent with complementary partial mediation. Economic pessimism shows a small positive association with compensatory consumption but does not reach conventional statistical significance, and it does not moderate the relationship between financial anxiety and compensatory consumption. These findings imply that fiscal communication can generate unintended welfare-relevant behavioural spillovers through anxiety-based coping, highlighting the importance of clearer expectation management and reduced interpretive strain in value-added tax messaging for digitally connected young consumers.