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PSLmodels / Tax-Brain

Tax-Brain is an integrator model for PSL tax models
http://taxbrain.pslmodels.org/
MIT License
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Modifiable elasticity of tax-filing for refundable credits #110

Open Thirdhuman opened 4 years ago

Thirdhuman commented 4 years ago

Are there any plans to integrate a behavioral response that incorporates increased tax-filing?
I'm thinking in particular of fully-refundable child-tax credits here. Current non-filers who stand to gain would plausibly change their behavior here.

andersonfrailey commented 4 years ago

Hi @Thirdhuman, thanks for the suggestion. As of now we don't have plans to include a feature like that, though it would be great to have. I'll leave this issue open and if at a future date we figure out how to implement a method to account for changes in the number of tax filers we'll post about it here.

MaxGhenis commented 4 years ago

My understanding is that the current logic assumes that all filers take advantage of all credits available to them, including current non-filers (imputed from the CPS). So Tax-Calculator should be overestimating EITC today, for example. I think the first step would be calibrating the filing rate and claim rate of credits like EITC to SOI totals, and identifying an elasticity from there would be useful.