Taxes without Taxpayers: The Invisibility of Taxes in Chile

This study documents the existing gap between tax structure and tax visibility using evidence from a nationally representative survey in Chile around the time of a contentious tax reform bill. Debates over taxation often assume that taxpayers know the scale and reach of their tax obligations and the benefits associated to paying taxes, which are crucial to the success of taxation as a tool for development. We tested the assumption of a well-informed taxpayer and find generalised opacity along with the stratification of both income and value-added taxes visibility. We end by discussing how tax visibility relates to taxpayers’ expectations of tax morality and redistribution. [ We thank the Instituto de Politicas Publicas of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, in particular to Ignacio Irarrazaval and Francisca Alessandri, for access to the data set and comments during the seminar “Encuesta Bicentenario: Una radiografia al alma de Chile,” in January 2015. We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor of Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Politicas y Sociales for their helpful comments, and German Vera Concha and Jorge Atria for the lengthy discussions on these issues. The usual disclaimer applies .]