Hvorfor skattelettelser gør os mindre glade

Republikanerne offentliggjorde for nylig deres skatteplan og håber at gøre den til lov inden Thanksgiving. Mens detaljerne er i bevægelse, det ville sandsynligvis fjerne ejendomsskatten, sænke den øverste marginale rente og skære virksomhedernes renter ned, producerer, ialt, hvad præsidenten har kaldt en "gigantisk" skattenedsættelse.

Hvert af disse elementer, hvis bestået, ville gøre skatteloven mindre progressiv og reducere statens indtægter på måder, der i sidste ende gør det sværere at betale for programmer og tjenester. Da formålet med offentlig politik bør være at forbedre borgernes liv og trivsel, det oplagte spørgsmål at overveje ved evaluering af denne plan er, om den gør det. Eller sagt på en anden måde, vil skatteplanen gøre de fleste amerikanere gladere?

Forskning i lykkeøkonomi foreslår to udsigtspunkter at bruge til at overveje dette spørgsmål.

Den første vedrører, hvor progressivt et skattesystem er. Kort fortalt, er samfundet lykkeligere, når de velhavende bærer en forholdsmæssigt højere andel af skatterne? Det andet er det samlede beskatningsniveau. Det er, om højere skatter gør folk mere eller mindre glade, fordi regeringen tager mere af deres indtjening og bruger den på tjenester som sundhedspleje eller infrastruktur.

Lad os overveje hver for sig.

Betydningen af ​​'skattemoral'

En nylig artikel i det peer-reviewed journal Psykologisk Videnskab tyder på, at lande med et mere progressivt skattesystem faktisk er lykkeligere end dem, hvor skattesatserne er fladere.

I dette stykke, tre psykologer sammenligner progressiviteten af ​​en nations skattesystem med forskellige mål for lykke. De finder klare og utvetydige beviser for, at progressive skatter "er positivt forbundet med subjektivt velvære." Med andre ord, et lands borgere er gladere, når de velhavende bærer en større del af skatterne.

Denne konklusion gælder ikke kun ved brug af simple korrelationer. Det holder også under sofistikerede statistiske analyser, der kontrollerer for andre nationale faktorer, såsom BNP pr. indbygger og indkomstulighed, såvel som for individuelle faktorer som indkomst, køn, alder og civilstand.

En grund til dette er, at sammenhængen mellem indkomst og lykke er stærkest for de fattige og middelklassen. Nobelpristagere Angus Deaton og Daniel Kahneman demonstrerede, at lykke stiger med indkomst, indtil en bestemt tærskel er nået, hvor afkastet med hensyn til trivsel gradvist falder. Det betyder, at mens indkomst tabt på grund af skatter skader de fattige og middelklassen – som har en tendens til at bruge det meste af det, de tjener – generer det ikke de velhavende – hvis tilfredshed med livet er meget mindre påvirket af en marginal stigning i skattetrykket.

En anden grund kan være, hvad forskere kalder "skattemoral". Dette refererer til, i hvilket omfang mennesker accepterer en moralsk forpligtelse til at betale skat som deres bidrag til samfundet. På tur, dette indebærer en tro på, at et skattesystem er retfærdigt.

Eksisterende forskning viser tydeligt, og sund fornuft antyder, at skattemoralen er højere jo mere progressivt et system er – dvs. et "fair" system er et system, hvor de rige betaler en uforholdsmæssig stor andel – og at folk med større skattemoral er mere lykkelige. Så, logisk, hvis progressiv beskatning øger skattemoralen, og skattemoralen øger lykke, mere progressive skatter betyder højere niveauer af lykke.

Dette er ikke gode nyheder for amerikanere, imidlertid.

Det amerikanske skattesystem er et af de mindst progressive i den vestlige verden og er betydeligt mindre, end det var for blot et par årtier siden.

And this is also bad news for the Republican tax plan – if the GOP and President Donald Trump want to make Americans happier.

The highly respected Tax Policy Center's detailed analysis of the plan shows that benefits are heavily skewed toward the wealthiest. The current proposal will benefit the 1 percent handsomely, increasing their incomes by more than 8 percent. Meanwhile the working and middle classes receive minimal benefits, if any – and they may even see their taxes increase.

While nothing is certain until the ink is dry, their bill most likely will result in a more regressive tax system that likely will make most Americans less happy.

What taxes do

But what about connection between the total tax burden and the national level of happiness?

Surely no one likes being taxed, but taxation is the mechanism by which society provides a great many things that people do like, such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, not to mention good schools, good roads and safe neighborhoods.

"Big government" programs benefit everyone for the obvious reason that they reduce poverty and alienation, thus lowering the social problems such as crime and suicide that these conditions produce.

In turn, it seems obvious that virtually all people, regardless of social class or political ideology, are happier when there is less poverty and less insecurity. Much peer-reviewed academic research has documented just that.

Whether looking across countries or across U.S. states, people – both rich and poor – tend to be happier in places where government provides a greater array of social protections and services. Derfor, the closer we approach what Europeans call social democracy – and Americans call New Deal programs – the more people tend to find life satisfying.

If taxpayer-funded government programs make people happy, then we should find a link between the level of tax burden and happiness. And in fact, that's what we find by examining a wide range of countries in the Western world.

For eksempel, Denmark, generally considered the world's happiest country, also has the highest tax burden of any of industrial democracy, with about half of all income going to the tax man in 2014. Conversely, the least happy are also the least taxed, namely South Korea and Turkey, which pay 25 percent and 15 percent, henholdsvis. Endnu, despite their low taxes, South Korea ranks just 58th in happiness, between Moldova and Romania, while Turkey ranks even lower at 69th, just below Libya.

We cannot of course generalize from a few examples, nor can we assume that taxation (and the spending taxation allows) are the only causes of happiness. To make strong claims about the nexus between taxation and well-being requires the rigorous and systematic analysis found in the peer-reviewed academic literature.

In "The Political Economy of Human Happiness, " one of us (Radcliff) examined individual-level data on 21 countries over three decades and found that people are happier as tax burden increases.

This held even when accounting for other factors known to affect happiness such as income, sundhed, Beskæftigelsesstatus, køn, alder, race, uddannelse, religion and so on. Tilsvarende the national or aggregate level of happiness went up or down with the level of taxation (again, controlling for other factors).

The same positive connection between tax burden and happiness was reported in a 2011 paper, while another article found that life satisfaction varies positively with the total amount of governmental "consumption" of the economy, that is the level of taxation.

The price of a 'civilized society'

While details of the Republican tax plan could change drastically, it is certain to reflect core Republican values like lowering tax rates and smaller government.

Republicans tend to favor a flat tax because they argue it's fairer. And they want to reduce the tax burden overall because they think people are better off with more money in their pockets and fewer government services. Scholarly research by us and others suggest they are wrong on both counts, at least in so far as human happiness is concerned.

The familiar aphorism, usually attributed to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, notes that "taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society, " a sentiment chiseled into the side of the IRS building.

We believe research into the economics of happiness would take this sentiment one step farther:Taxes are the price we pay for a happy society.

Denne artikel blev oprindeligt publiceret på The Conversation. Læs den originale artikel.