Collaborative tax evasion in the provision of services to consumers : a field experiment

Annabelle Doerr and Sarah Necker

We conduct a field experiment with sellers of home-improvement services on two German online markets. We take the role of consumers and vary whether we request an invoice for the delivery of the service. In a market which allows anyone to sell anonymously, a willingness to evade is prevalent. In a market that keeps track of credentials, sellers are only willing to evade when a willingness to collude is signaled. The evasion discount is in most estimates not larger than the tax subsidy for legal demand. Evasion is unlikely to be beneficial for many consumers in our setting.

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Year of publication:	2021
Authors:	Doerr, Annabelle ; Necker, Sarah
Publisher:	Mannheim, Germany : ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research
Subject:	Collaborative tax evasion \| evasion discount \| undeclared work \| third-party reporting \| field experiment \| Steuervermeidung \| Tax avoidance \| Feldforschung \| Field research \| Steuerstrafrecht \| Criminal tax law \| Experiment \| Steuerflucht \| Cross-border tax evasion