Measuring Fiscal Citizenship

Kim-Lee Tuxhorn, Jonathan Farrar, Oliver James, Josef Wunderlich

Taxation is a key part of the social contact between citizens and states. We draw on dimensions of political citizenship to develop a novel measure of fiscal citizenship to characterize this taxation component of the social contract. Fiscal citizenship potentially produces a basket of civic benefits – enhancing community solidarity, civic engagement, tax compliance, and participatory democracy. Yet, the empirical characteristics of the concept including how it varies across political contexts is largely unknown. We develop a survey model of fiscal citizenship drawing on citizenship dimensions of legal status, rights, participation, and identity. We apply the model using high quality population-based survey data from three advanced industrialized democracies (Canada, UK, and Germany) to draw conclusions about the state of contemporary fiscal citizenship.