My Taxes Are Too Darn High: Why Do Households Protest Their Taxes?

Abstract

In the United States and many other countries, taxpayers can file a protest to legally reduce their property taxes. Despite the widespread use of tax protests, there is little research on them. To fill this gap, we use administrative records and two sources of causal identification: a quasi-experiment and a large-scale natural field experiment. We document three key factors explaining why some individuals file protests while others do not: expected tax savings, filing frictions, and fairness considerations. On the contrary, we show that partisanship is not a significant factor. We calculate the willingness to pay for fairness and the magnitude of filing frictions using a money metric. Last, we discuss policy implications for a more equitable system of tax appeals.

Keywords: taxes, protest, appeal, preferences for redistribution, conditional cooperation

JEL Classification: C93, H26, K34, K42, Z13