In a controlled online experiment, we find evidence that the timing of taxes on retirement income affects taxpayers’ investment decisions such that tax-deferred plan participants under-adjust for future tax burdens and overestimate their future wealth compared to Roth participants. As a result, when presented with a specific, after-tax monetary goal, Roth account holders invest more in higher-risk, higher-return assets than tax-deferred account holders. We investigate four aspects of this investment context that could eliminate these differences: 1) changing the retirement goal to a non-specific “do-your-best” goal, 2) reframing specific goals in nominally higher pre-tax dollars, 3) prompting participants to explicitly estimate future taxes due on retirement savings, and 4) providing performance feedback. While we find each intervention reduces differences between Roth and tax-deferred plan participant behaviors, only goal reframing and explicitly prompting future tax-estimations encourage tax-deferred plan participants to invest in risky assets to the same degree as Roth participants.

中文翻译：

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所得税时间选择对退休投资决策的影响

在一个受控的在线实验中，我们发现有证据表明，对退休收入征收税款的时间会影响纳税人的投资决策，因此，与罗斯银行参与者相比，延税计划参与者对未来税负的调整不足，并高估了其未来财富。结果，与特定的税后货币目标相比，罗斯帐户持有人比递延税款帐户持有人对高风险，高回报资产的投资更多。我们研究了可以消除这些差异的这种投资环境的四个方面：1）将退休目标更改为非特定的“尽力而为”目标； 2）以名义上较高的税前美元来重新设定特定目标； 3）提示参与者明确估计退休储蓄应缴的未来税款； 4）提供绩效反馈。