Automatic Tax Filing: Simulating a Pre-Populated Form 1040 / Lucas Goodman, Katherine Lim, Bruce Sacerdote, Andrew Whitten.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Goodman, Lucas.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Lim, Katherine.

Sacerdote, Bruce.

Whitten, Andrew.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w30008.

NBER working paper series no. w30008

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2022.

Summary:

Each year Americans spend over 1.7 billion hours and $33 billion preparing individual tax returns, and these filing costs are regressive. To lower and redistribute the filing burden, researchers and policymakers have proposed having the IRS prepopulate tax returns for individuals. We evaluate this hypothetical policy using a large, nationally representative sample of returns filed for tax year 2019. Our baseline results indicate that between 66 and 75 million returns (42 to 48 percent of all returns) could be accurately pre-populated using only current-year information returns and the prior-year return. Accuracy rates decline with income and are higher for taxpayers who have fewer dependents or are unmarried. We also examine 2019 non-filers, finding that pre-populated returns tentatively indicate $8.2 billion in refunds due to 11 million (20 percent) of them.

Notes:

Print version record

April 2022.