Can you hear me now?: Why it’s so hard to deliver help to those who need it (Tatiana Homonoff)

Tatiana Homonoff is an assistant professor of economics and public policy at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service. Homonoff received her PhD in economics from Princeton University. Her research focuses on identifying areas in which behavioral economics can improve public policy, primarily in the areas of tax policy, public assistance, and consumer finance. Homonoff has also served as a faculty fellow at the White House's Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (SBST).

Tatiana joined us at NYU Law to present a paper she co-authored with Jason Somerville, “Program Recertification Costs: Evidence from SNAP”, at the Tax Policy Colloquium hosted by my colleagues Daniel Shaviro and Lily Batchelder. That paper showed that “[c]urrent recipients [of the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program], who must complete a caseworker interview by recertification month end, are 20 percent less likely to recertify when assigned an interview at the end rather than the beginning of the month.” In other words, those needy individuals who happen to get assigned an appointment on the 25th are more likely to lose out on help the government wants them to have then those fortunate enough to have their interviews scheduled on the 5th of the month.

Today’s student quote comes from Mathias from Copenhagen, Denmark. His quote is from Juliane Kokott, advocate general at the Court of Justice of the European Communities. Mathias explains why he chose the quote: “Abbey National is a well-known EU VAT case….[T]he British tax authorities' position was that the financial definition in the directive did not matter for the tax definition of managing an investment fund…. AG Kokott disagreed and gave her opinion (which was largely followed by the Court) that the financial definition and the tax definition should be linked together.” Mathias adds “I completely agree with the quote, and I find it problematic that both Danish, European, and US tax rules contain many inconsistent and illogical definitions of the same terms. A simple US example is I.R.C. § 318(a)(1) where the subheading "Members of family" does not include brothers and sisters. Surely, brothers and sisters are included in many other legal definitions of "family" and in the common understanding of the words. It's bound to mislead people.”