The James Hausman Tax Law and Policy Workshop Series
presents
Andrew Hayashi
University of Virginia Law School
The Effects of Refund Anticipation Loans on
Tax Filing and Compliance
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
12:30 – 2:00
Solarium (room FA2)
84 Queen’s Park
The IRS has an uneasy relationship with the use of paid tax return preparers by low-income taxpayers. Preparers may improve filing and take-up of benefits like the earned income tax credit (EITC), but many preparers also profit from financial products sold in connection with tax preparation that have been viewed as exploitative. Can we have a market for low-income tax preparation without such products, and should we? I estimate the effects of regulation curtailing the market for refund anticipation loans (RALs) on a variety of outcomes, including demand for paid tax preparation, EITC take-up, and demand for other financial products, to explore the source of RAL demand and the relationship between RALs and tax compliance. Nearly eliminating RALs reduced both the use of paid tax preparers and EITC take-up, and increased demand for an alternative product, which suggests that lack of access to the payment system, not impatience, is the source of RAL demand.
Andrew Hayashi is an expert in tax law, tax policy and behavioral law and economics. He joined the University of Virginia School of Law's faculty in July 2013 as an associate professor. Prior to joining the Law School, he was the Nourallah Elghanayan Research Fellow at the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University, where his research focused on the effects of tax policy on real estate and housing markets. Before joining the Furman Center, he practiced tax law as an associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell. Hayashi received a bachelor of science in foreign service degree, magna cum laude, in philosophy and international economics from Georgetown University in 2002. The following year, he received a master's degree in economics and philosophy from the London School of Economics. He received a law degree, Order of the Coif, and a doctorate in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2008. At Berkeley, he was a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Scholar, a Berkeley Law and Economics Fellow, and received research funding from the Russell Sage Foundation and the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education.
A light lunch will be served.
For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.
