Tax Designs and Tax Attitudes
Name
[15408884 - The Forum] Tax Designs and Tax Attitudes.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
252.82 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
ed2e7e4c8e84ae97924c2bb41d3c4f84
Author(s)
Campbell, Andrea
Date Issued
October 2018
Journal
Forum
Publisher
Walter de Gruyter GmbH
Citation
Campbell, Andrea Louise. "Tax Designs and Tax Attitudes." The Forum 16, 3 (October 2018): 369-397 © 2018 Walter de Gruyter
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The watchword of the policy feedbacks approach to political analysis - that politics shapes policy - suggests that the way in which taxes are designed may influence how the public feels about various levies: their support for those taxes, their perceptions of fairness, and their willingness to pay them. Hypotheses about the design features of different taxes Americans pay, including tax regressivity or progressivity, the manner in which they are exacted, their actual and perceived costs, and the visibility and desirability of resulting benefits, are examined with closed- and open-ended survey data. Taxes with more attractive design features are generally more positively perceived by the public. Open-ended responses help explain the fairness perceptions and popularity of several taxes, including a widespread belief that estate taxes constitute “double taxation” and the considerable embrace of the notion that “everyone pays” state sales tax (as opposed to the federal income tax, where some rich and poor people “get away” without paying). These results help explain why some taxes invite more ire than others.
MIT Department
Sloan School of Management
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1515/for-2018-0031
