New Gig Work or Changes in Reporting? Understanding Self-Employment Trends in Tax Data

Andrew Garin, Emilie Jackson and Dmitri Koustas

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2025, vol. 17, issue 3, 236-70

Abstract: We show that increases in the share of workers reporting self-employment to the IRS are not associated with changes in firm-reported payments to "gig" and other contract workers after 2005 but are driven primarily by self-reported earnings of individuals in the EITC phase-in range. We examine a regression discontinuity design that generates exogenous variation in tax rates at the end of the year after labor supply decisions are already sunk and find tax code incentives increase self-employment reporting conditional on actual labor supply. We show that reporting effects have grown over time as knowledge of the tax code spreads.

JEL-codes: C83 H24 H31 J22 J23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1257/app.20220483

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