This paper examines the determinants of tax lobbying report compliance and issues lobbied. Disclosure rules under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 and Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 require lobbyists to disclose the issues on which they lobby the U.S. federal government. Despite these disclosure rules, I find substantial variation in the level of compliance with the Act related to tax issues. Using a hand-collected dataset of corporate tax lobbying reports, I find that only 68.4% of these reports are fully compliant with the Act, on average. Notably, the percentage of compliant tax lobbying reports has declined significantly over time, from almost 90% compliance in 2008 to less than 50% compliance by 2017, with some rebound to about 60% by 2019. I find greater compliance when lobbying reports are filed by in-house lobbyists, by revolving door lobbyists, for lobbying activity related to the Department of the Treasury, later in the year, and with a higher tax lobbying dollar amount, and lower compliance for larger firms. Additionally, I identify that the major tax issues lobbied relate to international taxes, investment incentives, and non-income taxes. I find that lobbying reports that mention either international taxes or investment incentives are more likely to have a higher tax lobbying dollar value, suggesting they are more valuable to corporations than non-income taxes. Overall, this paper provides detailed evidence on firms’ compliance with federal disclosure laws related to tax lobbying, the nature of tax issues being lobbied, and the role of lobbyists in advocating for those issues.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/48820 |
| Date | 21 May 2024 |
| Creators | Cunningham, Jessica |
| Contributors | Lisowsky, Petro |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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