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,...

How did developing Asian economies perform with respect to tax revenue mobilization before and during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic? An analysis of data from developing Asia suggests that both short-run and long-run tax buoyancies, a measure of how tax revenue responds to gross...

Aus Gründen der ökonomischen Effizienz sollte eine progressive Besteuerung des Einkommens erst dann zur Anwendung kommen, wenn dieses für den privaten Konsum oder andere private Zwecke (z. B. Schenkungen) verwendet werden soll. Unter Effizienzaspekten, d. h. zur Gewährleistung der...

Almost 140 countries have agreed to reallocate the rights to tax international corporate profits and to introduce minimum tax rates. The agreed plan is the product of pragmatism and a search for consensus, but ambitious. It includes steps towards unitary taxation to be established by a...

The topics discussed in this report are tax regimes for small taxpayers (Chapter II) and the tax treatment of special economic zones (Chapter III). Although these aspects of the tax system have little direct effect on public finances, they affect many people and how those people make decisions...

Many African countries struggle to collect an adequate amount of tax revenue to support needed investments in public services. This paper examines how African countries may take advantage of recent advances in technology to improve tax administration. It provides an overview of the potential and...

The introduction of a formulaically apportioned common consolidated corporate tax base (CCCTB) could represent a milestone in international taxation. No agreement has yet been reached, however. In contrast, Germany already has a long-standing system that apportions corporate taxes by splitting...

Do strong states affect the culture and actions of their citizens in a persistent way? And if so, can the capacity to tax, by itself, have a role in driving this effect? I study how the historical capacity of a state to collect taxes affects the decision of citizens to evade the mandatory...

In this paper I study whether citizens' tax morale (and, more broadly, citizens' attitudes towards the state) can be affected by past institutions, focusing on the role of historical fiscal capacity. Exploiting the features of the tax collection system of a pre-unification state in XIX Century...

Previous studies of tax enforcement neglect the effect of tax-penalty discretionary benchmarks on corporate financial reporting quality. In China, province-level variations in implementing tax-penalty discretionary benchmarks provide a quasi-natural experiment to explore how tax enforcement...

We show that delegating tax collection to large firms can help build tax capacity in weak-enforcement settings. We exploit two reforms in Argentina that dramatically expanded and subsequently reduced turnover tax withholding by firms. Combining firm-to-firm data with regression discontinuity and...

Using two experiments, this study examines taxpayers' decisions on how much income to report in the presence of tax auditors and post-reporting tax advisers, respectively. In the first experiment, we examine taxpayers' compliance in the presence and absence of corrupt auditors. In the second...

In this paper we propose a new IV estimator to be used in detecting vertical property tax inequity. We conduct Monte Carlo experiments to evaluate the bias of this estimator in comparison to traditional linear and log-linear regression based estimators. We find that the new estimator is more...

GST/VAT should apply to groceries in Canada. Misconceptions have led many Canadians to oppose taxing groceries or special interest groups to complain about the inequities inherent in taxing some food products but excluding others. With a broader GST base, for example by including groceries, the...

This paper estimates the cost of filing taxes and assesses several policy proposals aimed at reducing these costs. Using US tax returns, a quasi-experimental method and additional extrapolations based on survey evidence, I uncover three main findings. First, filing costs are large and have been...

While there are various studies on the relationship between law enforcement and tax compliance, a study that empirically examines the relationship between them within an actual tax administration’s strategy map is lacking in the literature. In response, we set out to examine an identified...

Detroit is experiencing historic levels of property tax foreclosure. More than 100,000 properties, or one-in-four throughout the city, have been foreclosed upon for nonpayment of property taxes since 2011. Simultaneously, there is strong evidence that the City is over assessing homeowners in...

This paper investigates the simultaneous relationship between tax rates and city property tax bases using data for 86 large U.S. cities in 1967, 1972, 1977, and 1982. We find that a 10 percent increase in the city's property tax rate decreases the city's tax base by about 1.5 percent. In...

The federal tax code contains a number of provisions that reduce taxes on personal and business investment income. Many of these provisions fall into two categories: yield exemption provisions, which reduce taxes on investment returns, and tax deferral provisions, which reduce taxes on...

Tax compliance has become a very popular academic research topic. Understandably so, as all modern societies face the challenge of limiting tax evasion and the losses this phenomenon causes to government revenues. Given the increase of duties in the aftermath of the economic downturn, increasing...

The tax base for state unemployment insurance (UI) programs varies significantly in the U.S., from a low of $7,000 annually in California to a high of $52,700 in Washington. Previous research has provided surprisingly little guidance to policy makers regarding the tradeoffs associated with this...

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...

Under Action 14, countries have committed to implement a minimum standard to strengthen the effectiveness and efficiency of the mutual agreement procedure (MAP). The MAP is included in Article 25 of the OECD Model Tax Convention and commits countries to endeavour to resolve disputes related to...