Situating Tax Experimentation: A Response to Michael Abramowicz’s Tax Experimentation

Abstract

In "Tax Experimentation," Professor Michael Abramowicz proposes that the government employ “tax experiments.” In these experiments, a subgroup of taxpayers would be treated differently than other taxpayers, for purposes of the tax law, for some period of time. The behavior of the treatment group could give the government information about tax policies. After briefly summarizing the article, this response suggests that Professor Abramowicz’s proposal has the potential for significant impact and that taking into account additional issues raised by existing tax scholarship—about tax morale, revenue estimation, and sunset provisions—will make the proposal even stronger.

Keywords: tax, tax morale, sunset provisions, tax experiments

JEL Classification: K10, K30