My Taxes are Too Darn High: Why Do Households Protest their Taxes? / Brad C. Nathan, Ricardo Perez-Truglia, Alejandro Zentner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nathan, Brad C.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Perez-Truglia, Ricardo.

Zentner, Alejandro.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w27816.

NBER working paper series no. w27816

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2020.

Summary:

In the United States and many other countries, taxpayers can file a protest to legally reduce their property taxes. While tax protests can provide a unique opportunity to study the (un)willingness to pay taxes, they have received little attention from researchers. To fill that gap, we study what motivates households to protest their property taxes. Using a field experiment, we show that filing frictions and fairness considerations play significant roles. In comparison, partisan identity plays a minor role. We calculate the magnitude of filing frictions and willingness to pay for fairness using a money metric. To do so, we combine our experimental estimates with quasi-experimental evidence on the role of expected tax savings. Last, we discuss how low-cost interventions targeted at disadvantaged groups can mitigate existing economic and racial disparities in the system of tax appeals.

Notes:

Print version record

September 2020.