We study optimal tax design based on the idea that policy-makers face trade-offs between multiple margins of redistribution. Within a Mirrleesian economy with earnings, consumption and retirement savings, we derive a novel formula for optimal income and savings distortions based on...

We study optimal tax design based on the idea that policy-makers face trade-offs between multiple margins of redistribution. Within a Mirrleesian economy with earnings, consumption and retirement savings, we derive a novel formula for optimal income and savings distortions based on...

In recent decades, Zimbabwe’s development record has been disappointing. In the last few years, a severe drought and the Covid-19 pandemic have added to the country’s development challenges. This paper is concerned with the long-run need to find a path toward faster growth in GDP,...

We analyze the optimal nonlinear income tax schedule when taxpayers earn multiple incomes and differ along many unobserved dimensions. We derive the necessary conditions for the government's optimum using both a tax perturbation and a mechanism design approach, and show that both methods produce...

We use income data from tax registers at the Uganda Revenue Authority from 2011 to 2017 to estimate top income inequality, focusing on the very top-the top 1, 0.1, and 0.01 per cent of the income distribution. The focus on the extreme top is facilitated by access to population data on formal...

Do sovereign bond investors care about taxation in the countries where they invest? In this paper, I examine the response of sovereign spreads to changes in tax revenues, bases and rates. In simple OLS regressions there is a negligible relationship between sovereign spreads and taxation....

Increasing the tax compliance of self-employed business owners (particularly of tradespecific service providers) remains an ongoing challenge for tax authorities. From a compliance point of view, cash transactions are particularly problematic when services are paid for on the spot, as such...

Based on the agreed Pillar 1 threshold of profitability of 10% (and given that financial and extractive companies are excluded), then only 78 of the world's 500 largest companies will be affected. If the proportion of profit above this threshold liable to Amount A is set to 20% (from the range...

Multinational companies are now obliged to deliver an annual report to the tax authorities with information disaggregated by country (country-by-country reporting) in order to show where the assets and workers are allocated, how profits are distributed and to whom taxes are paid. Unfortunately,...

Im Rahmen des Steuerverfahrens muss die Finanzverwaltung sowohl Unternehmen für die Betriebsprüfung auswählen als auch innerhalb der Unternehmen steuerliche Risikoschwerpunktbereiche identifizieren. Traditionell stützt die Verwaltung sich dabei auf Veranlagungsdaten, Kennzahlenvergleiche mit...

There has been a pronounced change in the formulas states use to apportion the income of multistate corporations from one that placed equal weight on payroll, profits, and sales to one that places at least half the weight on sales, and eight base apportionment solely on sales. This paper, which...

Current reporting schemes for cross-border taxation are not completely fraud proof. Both the OECD’s Common Reporting Standards (CRS) and the US’s Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) allow tax evaders to hold assets abroad outright untaxed, or further allow for participation in schemes...

Tax reforms usually change both tax rates and tax bases. Using a panel of income tax returns spanning the two major U.S. tax reforms of the 1980s and a number of smaller tax law changes, I find that the elasticity of income reported on personal income tax returns depends on the available...

This paper presents a method of studying the distributional consequences of corporate tax changes by imputing to individual tax returns the net effect of changes in effective corporate tax rates. Particular attention is given to the difference between nominal and real capital income, to the...

The Connecticut tax structure contains glaring defects, especially in the corporate income tax, which have allowed it to hemorrhage to a point where, for some of the largest corporations in the state, it is essentially a voluntary tax. The corporate income tax must be revitalized in order to...

The resource cost of operating the income tax system is large, totaling as much as seven to eight percent of revenue raised. One source of this cost is the system of itemized deductions, which can require extensive record keeping and calculation. This paper estimates the resource cost of...

This paper explores the normative theory of international taxation by recasting it in parallel with the theory of international trade. It first sets out a definition of 'free trade taxation,' first in the global context and then in the unilateral context. It then evaluates against this standard...

In this paper we present an econometric analysis of state and federal tax audits. We first present results from a survey of state tax administrators. The survey results indicate that most state tax audit programs are small and rely extensively on information provided by the IRS, although some...

This paper evaluates the political economy and structural factors explaining the collection efficiency of the Value Added Tax [VAT]. We consider the case where the collection efficiency is determined by the probability of audit and by the penalty on underpaying. Implementation lags imply that...

This paper derives the dependency of optimal tariff and inflation tax on tax collection and enforcement costs. The analysis is done for a small, open economy. The existence of such costs can justify tariff and inflation tax policies as optimal revenue-raising devices. This paper suggests that...

Afghanistan has taken a number of measures to combat against tax evasion. These measures however, have not led to strengthening tax compliance in the country. This is because of social realities such as smuggling, corruption, black marketing, trading in narcotics and rejection of the state tax...

This paper analyzes the international reserve-holding behavior of developing countries. It shows that political-economy considerations modify the optimal reserve level determined by efficiency criteria. A country characterized by volatile output, inelastic demand for fiscal outlays, high tax...

This paper examines how increased tax enforcement accompanied by the new tax administration system impacts firm investment efficiency, exploiting the staggered implementation of the third phase of the Golden Tax Project (GTP III) in China. Consistent with the monitoring role of tax authorities...

This paper quantifies the impacts of collecting system on social insurance contribution compliance, taking advantage of a reform around 2000 in China. Using firm-level data, we find that the actual contribution rate and the probability of participation were raised by 3% and 5 percentage points...

We estimate effective and optimal net income tax schedules and compare them to the estimated statutory rates for the case of Lithuania for the period 2014-2015. Values of effective net tax rates are estimated from the survey of EU Statistics on Income and Living Conditions; the statutory net tax...

The issues and challenges in taxation in the digital economy stem from the complex and multifaceted nature of the digital economy. Reaching a common understanding and measurement of its size and impact is critical in devising a tax regime for the digital economy. In APEC Secretariat (2019), the...

By exploiting country-by-country reports (CBCRs) prepared according to the OECD BEPS Action 13's minimum standards and voluntarily published by multinational corporations (MNCs), we show that the CBCR data can be used to identify how much MNCs pay in taxes and where, as well as how important tax...

Governments and non-profits devote substantial resources to increasing take-up of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) through educational outreach. We study a different approach: policies that encourage tax filing. In a large field experiment, we find that IRS letters about free tax preparation...

Taxpayers often view tax rules and filing processes as complicated. In this paper I study whether the perceived tax uncertainty among peers leads to a reduction of voluntary tax compliance. I find strong supportive evidence for this hypothesis using a survey experiment for a large representative...

The aim of this contribution is to quantify the influence of selected methods on elimination of value added tax gap in the Czech Republic within the researched period 2015-2016. To find a possible share of influence of the VAT control statement on tax fraud following priority methods were set:...

Corporate income tax significantly affects the overall amount of government tax revenue. In spite of the attention being paid to many macroeconomic indicators (e.g. GDP, inflation, unemployment rate, etc.) influencing the total amount of tax revenues influence, we can hardly find empirical...

We exploit the new multinational corporations' country-by-country reporting datawith unparalleled country coverage to study profit shifting to tax havens. We showthat a logarithmic function is preferable to linear and quadratic ones for modelling the extremely non-linear relationship between...