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Keynote Presentation -Tax Knowledge and Tax Manipulation: A Unifying Model - Ashley Craig

Tracks
Room CBE LT3
Thursday, June 29, 2023
11:30 AM - 12:25 PM

Overview

PUBLIC ECONOMICS: TAXATION Convenor: Ashley Craig


Speaker

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Dr Ashley Craig
Senior Lecturer
Australian National University

Tax Knowledge and Tax Manipulation: A Unifying Model

Abstract

Taxpayers face complex tax systems, which many struggle to understand while others strive to exploit. We characterize optimal tax rates and taxpayer education when heterogeneous individuals have an incomplete understanding of the tax system. The analysis shows how learning about tax minimization strategies is isomorphic to learning about tax rates. In both cases, the government faces a trade-off: Educating taxpayers allows them to better optimize, but affects government revenue. The optimal amount of taxpayer education and redistribution are both characterized by aggregate sufficient statistics, which do not require information about how biases or behavioral responses vary across decision margins.

Biography

I am a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Research School of Economics at the Australian National University (ANU), and a John Mitchell Fellow. I am also affiliated with the Office of Tax Policy Research at the University of Michigan, the Institute of Labor Economics and the ANU Tax & Transfer Policy Institute. My research spans Public Economics and Labor Economics, with a particular focus on human capital investment, taxation, and inequality.
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