The Partisan Politics of Tax

While the study of how state distributes social transfers follows a sophisticated, varied and contested research tradition, the study of how the state generates the revenue for its redistributive and other social functions is much less developed. Yet, taxes are in themselves some of the main policy instruments through which parties and governments can affect redistributive outcomes. Voters also seem to care, as recent research into voters’ tax preferences indicates that while higher tax levels are politically unpopular on average, more progressive tax policies are not. This is of course of interest to parties seeking politically feasible ways of redistribution when the scope for increasing government spending is limited. This paper puts forward a theoretical framework for studying partisan politics in the tax realm. It does so by discussing which policy goals we should expect parties – left-wing and right-wing, respectively – to pursue and when to do so. The paper tests the effect of partisanship on key tax policy indicators using recent OECD data.