Rising Income Tax Complexity / Youssef Benzarti, Luisa Wallossek.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Benzarti, Youssef.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Wallossek, Luisa.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w31944.

NBER working paper series no. w31944

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2023.

Summary:

This paper provides novel estimates on the cost of filing taxes over time and in different countries. First, we ran a survey of US taxpayers. We find that taxpayers perceive that tax complexity and filing costs have been increasing and that the majority would be willing to pay for simplifying the tax system and adopting pre-populated tax returns. Second, we use word counts of the tax codes in several countries dating as far back as the early 1980's as a proxy for tax compliance costs. This measure shows that compliance costs have been steadily increasing.

Notes:

Print version record

December 2023.