Tax compliance.

Item request has been placed! ×
Item request cannot be made. ×
loading   Processing Request
  • Additional Information
    • Abstract:
      The problem of tax compliance is as old as taxes themselves. Characterizing and explaining the observed patterns of tax non-compliance and ultimately finding ways to reduce it, are of obvious importance to nations around the world. As a public finance topic, tax compliance spans the notions of equity, efficiency and incidence. Tax evasion clearly complicates measures of the distortionary effect of taxation-given a fixed revenue requirement, evasion means that higher and more distortionary taxes on reported income may be needed, while unreported income largely escapes taxation and its distortionary effects. The theoretical models have only served as rough guides for empirical research; few structural econometric models have been estimated, particularly as compared with other applied fields of microeconomics, such as industrial organization and consumer choice. The most significant discrepancy that has been documented between the standard economic model of compliance and real-world compliance behavior is that the theoretical model greatly overpredicts non-compliance.