The Case for Measuring Tax Gap

More recently an increasing number of revenue authorities have attempted to estimate the amount of tax that is legally owing to their government but not collected. This amount is commonly referred to as ‘tax gap’. In the past tax gap studies were branded unreliable. Tax administrations and other bodies criticised any attempts at quantifying tax non-compliance on the basis that it was costly and inconclusive. However based on the significant number of tax gap studies undertaken recently there appears to have been a change of heart. This paper considers a range of tax gap studies for the purpose of identifying the core reasons they were undertaken, highlighting their benefits and limitations.