Emily Lin (Office of Tax Analysis, U.S. Treasury Department) presents Who’s On (the 1040) First? Determinants and Consequences of Spouses’ Name Order on Joint Returns (with Joel Slemrod (Michigan; Google Scholar), Evelyn Smith (Michigan) & Alexander Yuskavage (Office of Tax Analysis, U.S. Treasury Department)) at Georgetown today as part of its Tax Law and Public Finance Workshop hosted by Emily Satterthwaite and Dayanand Manoli:
Married couples filing a joint return put the male name first 88.1% of the time in tax year 2020, down from 97.3% in 1996. The man’s name is more likely to go first the larger is the fraction of the couple’s allocable income that goes to him, and the older is the couple. Based on state averages, putting the man’s name first is strongly associated with conservative religious attitudes, religiosity, and a survey-based measure of sexist attitudes. Risk-taking and tax noncompliance are both associated with the man’s name going first.
Conclusion
Married couples filing a joint return in the US must choose one of the spouse’s names to be listed first on the tax return. The wording that accompanies the Form 1040 and its instructions implies, but in no way requires or even suggests, that the name of the person doing the couple’s taxes should be listed first. The fact that this decision has absolutely no effect on tax liability might lead one to believe that the name order decision is made causally and, perhaps, randomly.
This paper shows that this is far from the truth. The male name goes first in the vast majority of cases—88.1% of the time in tax year 2020. That figure is noticeably less than it stood in 1996, when 97.3% of joint returns had the male name listed first. The decline has been monotonic, and is largely because newly formed couples filing jointly are more likely to list the woman’s name first, and to a lesser extent because married couples who switch name order result in a net increase in the female-first fraction. These increases are mitigated by the fact that couples who stop filing jointly are more likely than average to have listed the woman’s name first.
What we cannot resolve is the extent to which the name order follows the allocation of tax filing responsibility in the family. But we do observe that, holding income group and age group constant, the man’s name is more likely to go first the larger is the fraction of the couple’s allocable income earned by him. Given that a large previous literature has linked the share of a couple’s income received to measures of male weight in household decisions, it seems that name order might be associated with male weight in decisions. We also observe that, other things equal, older married couples are more likely to put the man’s name first. Strikingly, these same associations appear in an analysis of same-sex joint filers—the spouse with more earnings (and who is older) is more likely to be listed as the “primary” taxpayer of the couple. Although we have very limited demographic information about households, we observe that, based on state averages, putting the man’s name first is strongly associated with conservative religious attitudes and religiosity, and is highly correlated with a survey-based measure of sexist attitudes.
Although the name order does not affect tax liability, it is associated with certain behaviors that some previous literature has associated with gender. Risk-taking and tax noncompliance each are associated with the man’s name going first, as well as with the share of earnings received by the man. But the opposite is true for charitable deductions.
One policy change worth considering is to eliminate the statement on tax forms and instructions (and the reality) that a change in the name order from one year to the next might delay processing of the tax return. Given the gradual change in attitudes regarding male primacy in the United States, the current wording cements into place outmoded behavior.
