Voters' Preferences for Taxation in a Developing Country: Evidence from a Representative Survey in Colombia
P4-2
Presented by: Ángela Fonseca Galvis, Luis Carlos Reyes
Using a representative survey of voters in major Colombian cities, we analyze voters' stated preferences for increasing the VAT, corporate income tax, personal taxes on capital income, personal taxes on labor income, and the wealth tax in order to fund the country's response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Because these taxes amount to 90% of the national government's tax revenue, we are able to collect information on voters' preferences regarding most of the tax system. We examine how preferences vary by income, perception of their own place in the income distribution, and relevant socioeconomic variables, contrasting them with what would be expected from the political economy literature. We find that voters do have opinions about the different taxes in the tax structure and are, in general, in favor of raising taxes as long as it is not taxes that they pay. They have these opinions even though they are not good at identifying their place in the income distribution, as other literature has found for other countries.