Fernando Rodrigo

Surveys show that most citizens are unable to correctly identify the taxes received or the services provided by the different levels of government. This shortcoming represents an obstacle to democratic accountability and for the efficiency gains that the theory of fiscal federalism attributes to fiscal decentralisation be effective. Exploiting the 2015 wave of the Spanish Institute for Fiscal Studies' Fiscal Barometer, this paper empirically determines the profile of citizens who are best able to identify the allocation of taxes among the central, regional and local levels of government. The estimates suggest that these citizens are those who are able to identify the government that provides the services financed by those taxes, who correctly identify other taxes received by the same government, who reside in a foral region, and who enjoy a high level of education.

The study empirically tests whether regional differences in personal taxes (Personal Income Tax, Wealth Tax, and Inheritance and Gift tax) have had some influence on the decision of the richest Spanish taxpayers to change their residence. The estimates use the Personal Income Tax (IRPF) Panel database provided by the Ministry of Public Finance. The study offers evidence that regional tax differences affect the decision to change residence of the top income taxpayers and also that this decision is also affected by other attractiveness and opportunity factors offered by the regions, and by certain characteristics of the individuals. However, the marginal effects are very slight, except for the coefficient of the variable showing regional differences in IRPF: If the difference between average regional IRPF rates increases by 10 percentage points in favour of the other regions, the probability of a top 1% taxpayer changing its residence increases by 11.2 percentage points. The study also documents the importance of the Community of Madrid in the relocation decisions of rich taxpayers. Finally, the study finds that the behaviour of taxpayers aged 65 years and over in the top 1% does not seem very different from that of all taxpayers in the same income bracket.