| dc.description.abstract | Tax privatization is a rising American trend. Whether it involves receivables, consultants, or a number of other programs, tax privatization is expanding on multiple fronts. But an important question arises about their use: Are there any penalties for the government in response to privatization? In this dissertation, I examine the consequences of privatization from different angles.
The first angle that I explore centers on tax farming. Tax farming is when the government sells off the right to a specific type of tax for a lump sum. States for several decades have been practicing this form of revenue program and now the national government is practicing it as well. A question that naturally arises from the literature is whether privatizing government functions can have negative repercussions with respect to tax compliance attitudes. In short, the public may punish the government for program failure. However, I find little evidence that the public is sanctioning the government for program failure.
The second angle that I explore centers on whether institutional characteristics of our national tax system can create unintended impacts on tax compliance attitudes. The two key institutional characteristics that I explore are regressive taxation and privatized tax administration. Theory from the literature on this topic suggests that there is a form of social contract of taxation between the state and its associated citizens. The belief is that the willingness of taxpayers to pay taxes depends on receiving government services as a form of quid pro quo relationship. However, I find little evidence that these institutional characteristics are swaying tax compliance attitudes.
The final angle that I explore centers on sector bias in tax administration. Unlike the last two chapters that center on the relationship between the taxpayer and the tax authority, in this chapter I focus on taxpayer opinions of the tax authority (i.e. the Internal Revenue Service). More specifically, I study biases that the public may hold against the agency’s sector of public versus private. Consistent with much of the literature, I also find no evidence that the public cares about the sector of the tax authority’s privatized function. | en |
