Read my lips? Taxes and elections

Abstract

Recent research has found distinct electoral cycles in public spending, but the evidence for cycles in taxation is scarce, reflecting a lack of cross-nationally comparable measures of tax reforms. We use qualitative data provided by the IMF (Amaglobeli et al., 2018) to compile comprehensive tax reform indicators that cover the entire tax system for 22 countries between 1960–2014, including reforms of tax rates and bases for six tax types. Relating tax reforms to the timing of elections, we find results that are consistent with politicians postponing tax reforms to periods after elections. The results are most pronounced for tax increases, are stronger for tax rates than bases, and are driven by particularly salient tax types (personal income taxes and the VAT).