Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-28-2021
Publication Title
Review of Economics and Statistics
Volume
103
Issue
4
First page number:
636
Last page number:
651
Abstract
Tax enforcement is especially costly when market participants are difficult to observe. The benefits of enforcement depend crucially on pre-enforcement compliance. We derive an upper bound on pre-enforcement compliance from the pass-through of newly enforced taxes. Using data on Airbnb listings and the platform’s voluntary collection agreements, we find that taxes are paid on, at most, 24% of Airbnb transactions prior to enforcement. We also find that demand for Airbnb listings is inelastic, driving three key insights: the tax burden falls disproportionately on renters, the excess burden is small, and tax enforcement is relatively ineffective at reducing local Airbnb activity.
Controlled Subject
Taxpayer compliance
Disciplines
Economics | Taxation-Federal
File Format
File Size
447 KB
Rights
IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Repository Citation
Bibler, A. J.,
Teltser, K.,
Tremblay, M.
(2021).
Inferring Tax Compliance from Pass-through: Evidence from Airbnb Tax Enforcement Agreements.
Review of Economics and Statistics, 103(4),
636-651.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_00910