Toward a cultural sociology of taxation.

This article argues for developing a cultural sociology of taxation by applying Viviana Zelizer's theory of monetary exchanges as forms of "relational work" to the practice of taxpaying, focusing primarily on the U.S. federal income tax. It demonstrates how this perspective sheds light on key puzzles in American taxation, including the persistence of complex tax filing requirements, enduring anti-tax sentiment despite low rates, conservative support for certain government spending, and the dual role of taxpaying in fostering both solidarity and racialized hierarchies within citizenship. By highlighting taxpaying as a form of relational work, the article reveals continuities between taxpaying and other monetary exchanges and calls for further research to explore these cultural and relational dimensions across different tax systems and contexts. This approach aims to enrich fiscal sociology and relational economic sociology by providing analytic tools to assess how tax policies shape social relationships and conceptions of citizenship.