What We Talk About When We Talk About Taxes

Abstract

Taxes are a preeminent issue in domestic politics, but the prevalence, content, and shape of public discussion on taxation is often perplexing to social researchers. We argue that part of the confusion arises from the lack of qualitative data on the meanings Americans associate with taxation. In order to remedy this lack we conducted semi-structured interviews with white, Southern, small business owners. In answering our questions, our respondents constructed narratives that connected taxation with exploitation and a loss of personal freedom. We propose that everyday fiscal discourse is morally charged and interconnected with boundary work and a sense of group position. Further, qualitative research into tax talk can help make sense of the current political and social landscape (e.g., the continued cultural saliency of the Tea Party).

You Want to Spend My Money How? Framing Effects on Tax Increases via Ballot Propositions

“…Those who pay larger shares of a particular tax tend to view these levies more negatively (Campbell 2009). Finally, at the group-interest level, research has confirmed in-group considerations surrounding tax opinions; that is, increased favorability for exactions that benefit similarly situated peers (Kidder and William Martin 2012; Lieberman 2001).…”

The Centrality of Taxation to Social Policy

“…Revelant, 2013;Martin and Gabay, 2017). A small number of qualitative studies investigating the ways in which individuals make sense of taxation are also emerging across disciplines (for instance, Prabhakar (2008) in public policy, Stanley (2016) in politics, Kidder and Martin (2012) in sociology and Ruane (2018) in social policy).…”

Legitimacy gaps, taxpayer conflict, and the politics of austerity in the UK

“…This is important, for it suggests that these relations take place in 'the area of the remote and not of the near […] it is not the experience with concrete individuals in daily association that gives rise to the definitions of the extended, abstract group' (1958: 6). Kidder and Martin (2012) use this theory to show how the taxpayer can be understood not merely as a person who contributes to state revenues but as a specific sense of group position constituted in opposition to undeserving others. Their interview participants typically categorised themselves as an abstract category of person, 'the taxpayer': virtuous, hardworking citizens who were contrasted against undeserving poor (2012: 126).…”

“…Their interview participants typically categorised themselves as an abstract category of person, 'the taxpayer': virtuous, hardworking citizens who were contrasted against undeserving poor (2012: 126). 'Without exception', Kidder and Martin (2012) explain, the participants 'saw themselves in the former group, and they asserted the moral principle that those who have worked for their money should be rewarded and their efforts protected from idlers' (p. 126). Those 'idlers' were often characterised through stereotypes, such as welfare cheats and fat-cat bankers (2012: 126).…”

“…However, the article does not treat 'taxpayers' as a pre-given constituency like voters, citizens or certain interest groups. 3 'The taxpayer' is instead best understood as a sense of group position that arises from the everyday process of making sense of one's own and others' position in society and the wider fiscal order 4 (Blumer, 1958;Kidder and Martin, 2012). This particular order consists of the hardworking taxpayers who pay their own way and the undeserving poor and rich who take more than their fair share from the public purse.…”