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Incentive effects of the IRS’ passport certification and revocation process

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  • Organ, Paul R.
  • Ruda, Alex
  • Slemrod, Joel
  • Turk, Alex

Abstract

Traditional penalties for tax noncompliance are financial, but many jurisdictions now also use non-monetary tools, including collateral sanctions that deny access to some government-provided service. To learn about the effectiveness of one such penalty, we examine a recent U.S. policy restricting passport access for taxpayers with substantial tax debt, known as “certification.” We take advantage of a field experiment during the policy rollout, and find small but positive effects on taxpayer compliance of the certification notice sent to eligible taxpayers. We then study a subset of certified taxpayers who were denied a passport-related request, and find an immediate and strong positive effect of the denial on compliance.

Suggested Citation

  • Organ, Paul R. & Ruda, Alex & Slemrod, Joel & Turk, Alex, 2022. "Incentive effects of the IRS’ passport certification and revocation process," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:208:y:2022:i:c:s0047272722000275
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2022.104625
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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