| In the first chapter, I examine to what extent the timing of income affects whether or not a household contributes to an Individual Retirement Account (IRA), This idea is inconsistent with the life-cycle model approach to saving, but is consistent with alternative behavioral theories that posit that individuals exhibit risk aversion and use mental accounting to simplify decision making. I use a 1992 change in the federal income tax withholding tables to generate exogenous variation in the amount of refund or balance due upon filing a tax return. This change decreased the amount of taxes withheld throughout the year but did not change the final income tax burden. As a result, many households faced increased balances due or smaller refunds upon filing a tax return. The results show that the number of households contributing to an IRA fell by approximately 9.2 percent in 1992.;In the second chapter, I estimate the degree of income tax noncompliance using evidence from unaudited tax returns. Measurements of noncompliance are derived from the relationship between reported charitable contributions and reported income from wages and salary as compared to alternative reported income sources such as self-employment, farm income and/or rents and royalties. Assuming that the source of one's income is unrelated with one's charitable inclinations, any difference in the relationship between charitable contributions and the source of income can be attributed to (relative) underreporting by the individual. We find that the implied amount of noncompliance is significant and that it varies by source of income.;In the third chapter, I analyze the impact of a change on the implicit price of money donations on the decision to donate time and money. Using data from a national survey on charitable contributions, I estimate that donations of time and money are complements. Estimates from a structural model suggest that factors that lower the price of time will lead to increases in donations of money, and any tax reform which decreases the price of monetary donations will increase not only the quantity of monetary donations, but also the number of volunteering hours. |
