Taxpayer Behavior in the Age of AI: A Field Experiment on Property Tax Appeals

Justin Holz, Ricardo Perez-Truglia, Andrew Simon and Alejandro Zentner

No 35632, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Navigating the tax system often requires information and judgment that taxpayers may lack. Although taxpayers sometimes rely on human experts, AI could provide comparable assistance at substantially lower cost. Yet there is no causal evidence on how taxpayers use AI tax agents or how these tools affect their behavior. We fill this gap with a field experiment in the context of property tax appeals. We recruited a sample of 645 households in Dallas County, Texas. All households received access to a website providing personalized information, filing instructions, and supporting evidence for an appeal. Half were randomly assigned to a version of the website that also included an AI chatbot capable of answering questions and providing guidance tailored to their circumstances. Chatbot take-up was high: 78% initiated a conversation. Access to the chatbot increased the probability of filing an appeal without a human agent by 9.1 pp, from 41.4% to 50.5%. Evidence from clickstream data and conversation transcripts suggests that the chatbot helped households exercise judgment—that is, evaluate and act on the available information. The increase in appeal filing was smaller among less-advantaged households, providing suggestive evidence that the chatbot widened existing disparities. Our results demonstrate the potential of AI tax assistance while highlighting that who benefits depends not only on access, but also on how taxpayers use the technology.

JEL-codes: C93 H71 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-08
Note: PE
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