Imposing “sin” taxes has been the preferred way governments tried to discourage the over-consumption of temptation goods for decades. However numerous evidence shows that consumers exhibit behavioral biases which can affect their reaction to taxes. This paper investigates a potential bias and how it affects demand for temptation: financial worries associated with poverty have been shown to shift attention towards pressing needs, often at the expense of forward-looking decisions. In an online experiment with UK participants, we randomly induce financial worries and ask participants to allocate a budget between basic necessities and temptation goods in an experimental market. We randomly impose “taxes” on temptation by increasing its price. We find that, in the absence of any tax, inducing financial worries lowers demand for temptation, effect stronger for lower-income participants. However, when financial concerns are salient, increasing the tax does not lower demand among lower-income participants. While financial worries might protect against over-consumption of temptation in the absence of tax changes, they also might hurt the poor the most when additional taxes are introduced.

数十年来，征收“罪恶”税一直是政府试图阻止诱惑商品过度消费的首选方式。然而，大量证据表明，消费者表现出的行为偏见会影响他们对税收的反应。本文调查了一种潜在的偏见及其如何影响对诱惑的需求：与贫困相关的财务担忧已被证明会将注意力转移到紧迫的需求上，通常以牺牲前瞻性决策为代价。在与英国参与者进行的在线实验中，我们随机引发财务担忧，并要求参与者在实验市场中的基本必需品和诱惑商品之间分配预算。我们通过提高诱惑的价格随机对诱惑征收“税”。我们发现，在没有任何税收的情况下，引发财务担忧会降低对诱惑的需求，对低收入参与者的影响更大。然而，当财务问题突出时，增加税收并不会降低低收入参与者的需求。虽然在没有税收变化的情况下，财务担忧可能会防止过度消费诱惑，但当引入额外税收时，它们也可能对穷人造成最大伤害。