Public Attitudes Towards Redistribution Through Taxation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Redistributive taxation is the transfer of resources by the government apart from the simple exchange of goods and services or provision of public goods. To sustain a programme of redistribution requires both the trust of the public and a sense of legitimacy for these transfers. One factor that influences the legitimacy of transfers is the public's desired preferences for redistribution. This chapter explores the public ‘ s expressed attitudes towards redistribution, addressing two important gaps in our understanding. First, studies of support for redistribution have focused on desires for transfers from the rich to the poor or to the poor in general, but redistributive polices may also benefit the middle class and differ in character. Second, there is fundamental uncertainty as to what the public actually means when it suggests preferred distributions of the tax burden – are they expressing ideal preferences, or combining these with their own views of the disincentive effects of higher tax rates? We address this issue using data from the US in a nationally representative survey on taxation and fairness as well as an experiment. We find that Americans have some interest in redistribution to both the middle class and the poor. While the desire for redistribution to the poor is influenced by many factors (including measures of altruism, political ideology and values) demand for redistribution to the middle class appears to be driven by self-interest and knowledge of the tax system. The experimental results suggest that not only does the public not include incentive effects into their expressions for desired progressivity; but that they do not believe they should be included – in other words, the public separates judgements of progressivity from judgements of economic efficiency. INTRODUCTION Redistributive taxation is the transfer of resources by the government apart from the simple exchange of goods and services or provision of public goods. To sustain a programme of redistribution requires both the trust of the public and a sense of legitimacy for these transfers. One factor that influences the legitimacy of transfers is the public ‘ s desired preferences for redistribution. These preferences are the focus of this chapter.