Taxes without Taxpayers: The Invisibility of Taxes in Chile

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Andrés Biehl
José Tomás Labarca
Jacinta Vela

Resumen

This study documents the existing gap between tax structure and tax visibility using evidence from a nationally representative survey in Chile around the time of a contentious tax reform bill. Debates over taxation often assume that taxpayers know the scale and reach of their tax obligations and the benefits associated to paying taxes, which are crucial to the success of taxation as a tool for development. We tested the assumption of a well-informed taxpayer and find generalised opacity along with the stratification of both income and value-added taxes visibility. We end by discussing how tax visibility relates to taxpayers’ expectations of tax morality and redistribution.

[We thank the Instituto de Políticas Públicas of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, in particular to Ignacio Irarrázaval and Francisca Alessandri, for access to the data set and comments during the seminar “Encuesta Bicentenario: Una radiografía al alma de Chile,” in January 2015. We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor of Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales for their helpful comments, and Germán Vera Concha and Jorge Atria for the lengthy discussions on these issues. The usual disclaimer applies.]

 

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Biehl, A., Labarca, J. T., & Vela, J. (2019). Taxes without Taxpayers: The Invisibility of Taxes in Chile. Revista Mexicana De Ciencias Políticas Y Sociales, 64(236). https://doi.org/10.22201/fcpys.2448492xe.2019.236.62883

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Biografía del autor/a

Andrés Biehl, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. E-mail: <atbiehl@uc.cl>. We thank the Instituto de Políticas Públicas of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, in particular to Ignacio Irarrázaval and Francisca Alessandri, for access to the data set and comments during the seminar “Encuesta Bicentenario: Una radiografía al alma de Chile,” in January 2015. We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor of Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales for their helpful comments, and Germán Vera Concha and Jorge Atria for the lengthy discussions on these issues. The usual disclaimer applies

Andrés Biehl is assistant professor of Sociology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile –where he trained as a sociologist– and is an adjunct researcher at the Millennium Nucleus for the Study of the Life Course and Vulnerability (MLIV), supported by the Chilean Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism. He completed an MSc and a DPhil in Sociology at Oxford University. His interests lie in fiscal sociology, economic sociology, and comparative development and is currently researching the connection between taxation and labor markets from a historical and sociological perspective.

José Tomás Labarca, University of Edinburgh. E-mail: <jtlabarca@ed.ac.uk>.

José Tomás Labarca holds a bachelor in history and a master in sociology from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Currently, he is a PhD student in Sociology at the School of Social and Political Science in the University of Edinburgh. His research interests relate to historical/comparative sociology, economic sociology, political sociology, sovereign debt, and taxation. His work has been published in journals such as Latin American Research Review, Revista Mexicana de Sociología, and European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

Jacinta Vela, E-mail: <jacintavela@gmail.com>.

Jacinta Vela holds a BA in Sociology from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and an MPhil in Sociology from Oxford University. She is a full time researcher in the public sector. Her research focuses mainly on measurement of education quality, the association between social stratification and education, and social research methods.

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