What Tax Summaries Tell Us About Tax, Transparency, and Welfare: A Survey Experiment in the UK

Abstract

The stated aim of providing personalised tax receipts to income taxpayers is to enhance fiscal transparency, but doing so may also damage support for state spending if the documents provide a sense that current redistributive policies are unfair. This article analyses these dynamics through a survey experiment based on the “annual tax summaries” introduced by the UK tax authorities in 2014. By subtly manipulating the categories of state spending – in particular, the controversial category of “welfare” – to invoke a sense of unfairness, the article shows how budget information in general and the UK’s annual tax summaries in particular impact support for state spending. In doing so, the article contributes to the literature on taxation and democracy, fiscal transparency, and the framing effects of welfare.