Tax Designs and Tax Attitudes
Author(s)
Campbell, Andrea
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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.
Date issued
2018-10Department
Sloan School of Management; Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political ScienceJournal
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
ISSN
1540-8884