Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/289920 
Year of Publication: 
2023
Series/Report no.: 
IDB Working Paper Series No. IDB-WP-1330
Publisher: 
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Washington, DC
Abstract: 
The existing literature shows that women are more likely to pay taxes than men. Yet, there is less consensus on the gendered responses to interventions aimed at boosting tax compliance among non-payers. In this study, we exploit a field e xperiment designed to increase property tax compliance to investigate this gender disparity. Our findings reaffirm that women ar e typically mo re diligent in paying their ta xes th an men. Interestingly, while the receipt of a deterrence letter prompts women to pay earlier, it does not necessarily augment their overall compliance. Conversely, men, upon receiving a deterrence letter, show a marked improvement in overall compliance. We also find that the size of the tax bill influences women's compliance behavior (the likelihood of paying increases substantially for small bills), but not men's. To unpack this intriguing finding, we examine survey data to uncover the differing motivations and resources between genders. This analysis suggests that, although women may be more motivated to pay, they might encounter significant liquidity constraints. Our observations are consistent with a simple analytical model that correlates compliance to tax morale, risk aversion, and budget constraints. This research underscores the potential for tax policies and enforcement procedures to exacerbate income inequality between genders, especially in low tax-enforcement contexts where tax evasion is substantial.
Subjects: 
Taxes
Tax compliance
Field experiment
Development
Latin America and theCaribbean
JEL: 
H26
H24
D31
J16
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc-nd Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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