Deterring Property Tax Delinquency in Philadelphia: An Experimental Evaluation of Nudge Strategies

Michael Chirico, Robert Inman, Charles Loeffler, John MacDonald and Holger Sieg

National Tax Journal, 2019, vol. 72, issue 3, 479-506

Abstract: Municipal governments commonly confront the problem of tardy or delinquent property tax payments. We implement an experiment in property tax collection for tardy taxpayers in the City of Philadelphia for the calendar year 2015. The experiment sent one of seven reminder letters to the tardy taxpayers, testing the efficacy of a simple reminder; two alternative reminders stressing economic sanctions; and four alternative reminders emphasizing either that taxpayers receive neighborhood services or city-wide services for their tax payments, that most of their neighbors pay their taxes on time, or that as a citizen in a democracy it is a civic duty to pay taxes on time. Compliance behaviors were compared to a holdout sample that received no reminder letter. The most effective letters were those that threatened an economic sanction for continued non-compliance. These letters were particularly cost-effective in raising additional city revenues. There was no evidence that those receiving a reminder for calendar year 2015 improved their tax compliance behavior in calendar year 2016.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.17310/ntj.2019.3.01 (text/html)
Access is restricted to subscribers and members of the National Tax Association.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ntj:journl:v:72:y:2019:i:3:p:479-506

Access Statistics for this article

National Tax Journal is currently edited by Stacy Dickert-Conlin and William M. Gentry

More articles in National Tax Journal from National Tax Association, National Tax Journal Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by The University of Chicago Press ().