Ariel Jurow Kleiman (Loyola-L.A.; Google Scholar) presents Subjective Prices of Tax Compliance (with Jonathan Choi (Minnesota; Google Scholar)) right now as a part of the OMG Transatlantic Tax Talks Collection (OMG = Oxford-Michigan-MIT-Munich-Georgetown):

This Article introduces and estimates “subjective prices” of tax compliance, that are prices of tax compliance that folks expertise immediately and individually. To measure these prices, we performed a survey experiment assessing how a lot taxpayers would pay to cut back the unpleasantness related to submitting a tax return. The experiment revealed that taxpayers are extra involved about inadvertent errors of their tax filings than by the point spent on compliance. Respondents additionally solely ascribed significant worth to eliminating all tax compliance work; they ascribed basically no worth to marginal time financial savings. Moreover, eliminating tax compliance time for high-income taxpayers and taxpayers with complicated returns will not be value far more than eliminating tax compliance time for low-income taxpayers with easy returns. These findings have essential implications for principle and coverage. From a theoretical perspective, these survey outcomes name into query the practically common observe of utilizing market wages to monetize the time that folks spend on tax compliance work. Certainly, our outcomes counsel that folks worth their tax compliance time at a fee a lot decrease than their hourly wage.