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Do People Smooth their After-Tax Income? Evidence from Japanese Local Tax

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  • Yasue Hakata

Abstract

This study provides evidence that under the Japanese local individual income tax system, individuals smooth their after-tax income by choosing the timing of their tax payments. We construct a monthly data set of Japanese local taxes with sample periods for over 26 years. The results show that though the tax amounts are pre-determined in one-year units by the system, individuals pay more taxes during months when their incomes are high, such as in “bonus” periods, than other months in a year. The t-statistics for means indicates that there exist significant upward deviations during these months.

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  • Yasue Hakata, 2022. "Do People Smooth their After-Tax Income? Evidence from Japanese Local Tax," Bulletin of Applied Economics, Risk Market Journals, vol. 9(2), pages 147-158.
    • Handle: RePEc:rmk:rmkbae:v:9:y:2022:i:2:p:147-158
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumption smoothing; Local income tax; Inter-temporal decision making; Mean test; Levene test.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory

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