Abstract
This dissertation examines how the American tax system can be designed to more effectively alleviate poverty and promote economic security for low-income populations. While existing scholarship has focused primarily on refundable credits, rate progressivity, and tax-based welfare transfers, this project argues that important dimensions of the tax-and-poverty relationship remain underexplored. Through three interconnected articles, the dissertation investigates the accessibility of tax guidance, the distributive effects of tax-based worker relief, and the role of tax infrastructure in generating social insurance protections.
The first article, Frequently Unanswered Questions: Scrutinizing the IRS’s Informal Guidance, presents the first empirical readability analysis of the IRS’s Frequently Asked Questions, demonstrating that guidance intended for ordinary taxpayers is often as difficult to comprehend as specialized legal scholarship. The second article, Waiter, Extra Tip, No Tax: A Tax and Poverty Law Analysis, critically evaluates the “No Tax on Tips” provisions enacted in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and related legislative proposals, arguing that these measures inadequately target low-income workers while reinforcing the wage-suppression structure of tipped labor. The third article, Rate Your Experience: Comparative Lessons for Gig Work, examines how platform earnings interact with social insurance systems in the United States and abroad, arguing that meaningful protection depends less on worker classification than on whether earnings are automatically routed into contributory systems.
Viewed together, the dissertation argues that anti-poverty tax policy must be evaluated not only by the benefits it promises, but by whether vulnerable populations can meaningfully access, understand, and convert those benefits into long-term economic security.
