Portuguese municipalities can choose a withholding rate between zero and five percent of the income tax revenue collected within their boundaries. A reform altered the withholding rate applicable if a municipality fails to communicate a rate to the national tax authority, reducing it from five to zero percent. Although, from a neoclassical perspective, the reform leaves a municipality’s decision problem unchanged, right-leaning municipalities choose significantly lower rates than their left-leaning counterparts post-reform. The reform seems to have shifted perceptions, heightening the accountability of politicians and their responsiveness to the (ideological) preferences of their constituents.