Electronic filing, tax preparers and participation in the Earned Income Tax Credit

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Kopczuk, Wojciech; Pop-Eleches, Cristian
• 署名单位: Columbia University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2006.11.003
• 发表日期: 2007
• 页码: 1351-1367
• 关键词: take up of social benefits; tax preparers; Earned Income Tax Credit

摘要

In 2002 more than 18 million low-income individual taxpayers received the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Despite its size, non-participation in this program is a concern and substantial effort is devoted by the IRS, local governments and many non-profits to address it. Using variation across states in the introduction of state electronic filing programs, we show that the introduction of electronic filing had a significant effect on participation in the EITC. Our results are robust to accounting for other welfare, EITC and IRS reforms introduced during the same period. We speculate that the impact of this policy change on the tax preparation industry played an important role in increasing participation. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.