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Abstract

Politicians employ gimmicks to hide tax increases from voters. In this paper, we discuss four types of gimmicks. Legislative gimmicks use the wording of the tax law to hide who is being taxed or how much they are being taxed. Economic gimmicks use economic forces to hide who is being taxed and by how much. Communication gimmicks are ways of communicating tax legislation to voters so as to hide the effect or circumstances of tax legislation. Perceptual gimmicks use the voters’ psychologies against them so as to encourage the voter not to be aware of the tax.

Introduction

To get elected, politicians must please voters, and one thing that tends to greatly displease voters is higher taxes. But since government needs tax revenues to pay for government spending, politicians are often forced to vote for higher taxes. To minimize the effect of the increased taxes on their election prospects, politicians employ gimmicks to hide the taxes. In this paper, we discuss four types of gimmicks. Legislative gimmicks use the wording of the tax law to hide who is being taxed or how much they are being taxed. Economic gimmicks use economic forces to hide who is being taxed and by how much. Communication gimmicks are ways of explaini