Do Audits Deter or Provoke Future Tax Noncompliance? Evidence on Self-employed Taxpayers
Do Audits Deter or Provoke Future Tax Noncompliance? Evidence on Self-employed Taxpayers

Author: Sebastian Beer

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2019-10-11

Total Pages: 22

ISBN-13: 1513517953

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This paper employs unique tax administrative data and operational audit information from a sample of approximately 7,500 self-employed U.S. taxpayers to investigate the effects of operational tax audits on future reporting behavior. Our estimates indicate that audits can have substantial deterrent or counter-deterrent effects. Among those taxpayers who receive an additional tax assessment, reported taxable income is estimated to be 64% higher in the first year after the audit than it would have been in the absence of the audit. In contrast, among those taxpayers who do not receive an additional tax assessment, reported taxable income is estimated to be approximately 15% lower the year after the audit than it would have been had the audit not taken place. Our results suggest that improved targeting of audits towards noncompliant taxpayers would not only yield more direct audit revenue, it would also pay dividends in terms of future tax collections.

Do Audits Improve Future Tax Compliance in the Absence of Penalties?
Do Audits Improve Future Tax Compliance in the Absence of Penalties?

Author: Shafik Hebous

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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The Norwegian Tax Administration operated multi-year random audits of personal income tax returns. We exploit this exceptional randomized setup to estimate the effects of tax audits on future compliance explicitly distinguishing between dynamic responses of compliant and noncompliant audited taxpayers. A priori, the literature has suggested two competing effects: A post-audit deterrence effect-whereby audits prompt taxpayers to comply in subsequent years-or an "approval effect"-whereby audits lower taxpayers' subjective probability of detecting future evasion and hence weaken compliance. Our results suggest improved future compliance for five post-audit years by those that were found noncompliant in the audits. Those that were found compliant, however, show no signs of behavioral adjustments. Although the findings are consistent with the deterrence effect, we argue that there is also a "learning" effect with the important implication that better information for taxpayers critically complements tax audits.

Can Audits Encourage Tax Evasion? An Experimental Assessment
Can Audits Encourage Tax Evasion? An Experimental Assessment

Author: Emily A. Satterthwaite

Publisher:

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 69

ISBN-13:

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Governments and tax administrators around the world rely on the premise that audits will deter tax evasion. This Article presents experimental evidence that this premise may be, at least in part, misguided. Counterintuitively, I find that audits presented as random may induce taxpayers to cheat more. Where audits were described as being conducted at random, participants increased their levels of evasion in the tax periods immediately following the audit. This effect, however, did not plague nonrandom audits. When a separate group of participants faced audits that were presented as being nonrandom -- participants were told that detected evasion would “flag” a participant for one or more future audits -- participants cheated less in the periods immediately following the audit. Overall, average compliance in the nonrandom audit condition systematically and significantly dominated average compliance in the random audit condition. By revealing, under experimental conditions, strong behavioral responses to the way tax audits are presented, this Article highlights the potential enforcement benefits of being more transparent with taxpayers about the nature of audit selection.

Tax Morale What Drives People and Businesses to Pay Tax?
Tax Morale What Drives People and Businesses to Pay Tax?

Author: OECD

Publisher: OECD Publishing

Published: 2019-09-11

Total Pages: 68

ISBN-13: 9264755020

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Unlocking what drives tax morale – the intrinsic willingness to pay tax – can greatly assist governments in the design of tax policies and their administration, particularly in developing countries where compliance rates are low. This report builds on previous OECD research to identify some of the key socio-economic and institutional drivers of tax morale across developing countries, and seeks to test for evidence of the social contract by examining the impact of public services on tax morale. It also uses new data on tax certainty as an entry point to explore tax morale in businesses, where existing research is very limited. Finally, the report identifies a range of factors related to the tax system that may affect business decision making, how they vary across regions, and suggests some areas for future research. Overall, the report provides a range of suggestions for further work, and how tax morale considerations can be integrated into holistic tax compliance strategies.

Taxing Democracy
Taxing Democracy

Author: Valerie Braithwaite

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-10-31

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781138264038

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The integrity of tax systems as we know them are being challenged throughout the world. Tax avoidance schemes of various kinds are proving increasingly attractive and lucrative to wealthy individuals and large corporations. As governments fear the erosion of their tax base among those who are most able to contribute, the public is looking on, as one of its most public institutions attempts to re-invent itself through changing laws and administrative procedures. In this book, a number of experts develop the idea of responsive regulation in relation to taxation. They demonstrate how law in this area is undermining social norms and social norms are undermining law. A key factor in their analysis is the perception of justice. Explanations as to why the integrity of tax systems is under siege, and possible solutions, are examined.

The Cambridge Handbook of Compliance
The Cambridge Handbook of Compliance

Author: Benjamin van Rooij

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-05-20

Total Pages: 1559

ISBN-13: 1108754139

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Compliance has become key to our contemporary markets, societies, and modes of governance across a variety of public and private domains. While this has stimulated a rich body of empirical and practical expertise on compliance, thus far, there has been no comprehensive understanding of what compliance is or how it influences various fields and sectors. The academic knowledge of compliance has remained siloed along different disciplinary domains, regulatory and legal spheres, and mechanisms and interventions. This handbook bridges these divides to provide the first one-stop overview of what compliance is, how we can best study it, and the core mechanisms that shape it. Written by leading experts, chapters offer perspectives from across law, regulatory studies, management science, criminology, economics, sociology, and psychology. This volume is the definitive and comprehensive account of compliance.

Optimal Tax Administration
Optimal Tax Administration

Author: Mr.Michael Keen

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2017-01-20

Total Pages: 27

ISBN-13: 1475570309

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This paper sets out a framework for analyzing optimal interventions by a tax administration, one that parallels and can be closely integrated with established frameworks for thinking about optimal tax policy. Its key contribution is the development of a summary measure of the impact of administrative interventions—the “enforcement elasticity of tax revenue”—that is a sufficient statistic for the behavioral response to such interventions, much as the elasticity of taxable income serves as a sufficient statistic for the response to tax rates. Amongst the applications are characterizations of the optimal balance between policy and administrative measures, and of the optimal compliance gap.

Law and Social Norms
Law and Social Norms

Author: Eric Posner

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-07-01

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780674042308

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What is the role of law in a society in which order is maintained mostly through social norms, trust, and nonlegal sanctions? Eric Posner argues that social norms are sometimes desirable yet sometimes odious, and that the law is critical to enhancing good social norms and undermining bad ones. But he also argues that the proper regulation of social norms is a delicate and complex task, and that current understanding of social norms is inadequate for guiding judges and lawmakers. What is needed, and what this book offers, is a model of the relationship between law and social norms. The model shows that people's concern with establishing cooperative relationships leads them to engage in certain kinds of imitative behavior. The resulting behavioral patterns are called social norms. Posner applies the model to several areas of law that involve the regulation of social norms, including laws governing gift-giving and nonprofit organizations; family law; criminal law; laws governing speech, voting, and discrimination; and contract law. Among the engaging questions posed are: Would the legalization of gay marriage harm traditional married couples? Is it beneficial to shame criminals? Why should the law reward those who make charitable contributions? Would people vote more if non-voters were penalized? The author approaches these questions using the tools of game theory, but his arguments are simply stated and make no technical demands on the reader.

Formalization of the Informal Economy
Formalization of the Informal Economy

Author: Colin C. Williams

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-09-09

Total Pages: 129

ISBN-13: 3031379284

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This Brief provides a cutting-edge evaluation of the application of digital technologies to tackle the informal economy. Employing institutional theory to explain the informal economy, this book reveals that the informal economy arises when formal institutional failings trigger a gap between the formal rules of the game and social norms. Chapters outline how use of digital technologies by public authorities, such as tax, social security and labor authorities, can alter social norms so that they accord with the formal rules of the game and generate a formalization of the informal economy. Setting out the e-government tools that can improve the relationship between businesses, employers, workers and citizens, and government, this book will be essential reading for academics and advanced students studying development economics, labor economics, public economics, behavioral economics, economic sociology and institutional economics as well as for government policymakers working in related fields.

Crime, Shame and Reintegration
Crime, Shame and Reintegration

Author: John Braithwaite

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1989-03-23

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 9780521356688

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Crime, Shame and Reintegration is a contribution to general criminological theory. Its approach is as relevant to professional burglary as to episodic delinquency or white collar crime. Braithwaite argues that some societies have higher crime rates than others because of their different processes of shaming wrongdoing. Shaming can be counterproductive, making crime problems worse. But when shaming is done within a cultural context of respect for the offender, it can be an extraordinarily powerful, efficient and just form of social control. Braithwaite identifies the social conditions for such successful shaming. If his theory is right, radically different criminal justice policies are needed - a shift away from punitive social control toward greater emphasis on moralizing social control. This book will be of interest not only to criminologists and sociologists, but to those in law, public administration and politics who are concerned with social policy and social issues.