Tax Administration Reform and Taxpayer Compliance in India

This paper evaluates effects on tax compliance of simple reforms in personnel policy in the Indian income tax administration. Taxpayers voluntarily disclosing higher incomes are currently assigned to special assessment units. To avoid this, high income taxpayers have an added incentive to understate their incomes. Empirical evidence consistent with this hypothesis is found. It explains spillover effects of enforcement efforts across assessment units. We incorporate these spillovers in estimating revenue effects of increased support staff. The results imply significant compliance gains would accrue from expanded staff employment and changes in assignment procedures for staff and taxpayers.     

A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Thailand Taxpayer Survey

We investigate whether more resources should be devoted to a Thai tax enforcement program which is aimed at bringing small businesses into the tax system. We show that the appropriate criteria for determining whether more resources should be devoted to tax enforcement is whether the Atkinson–Stern condition for the optimal provision of a publicly-provided good is satisfied, or equivalently, whether the marginal cost of finds obtained through additional tax enforcement, SMCF_p, is less than the marginal cost of funds obtained through raising tax rates, SMCF_t. In our base case scenario, the SMCF_p is 11.60 which exceeds our estimate of the SMCF_t for an across-the-board increase in income tax rates on wage earners. The use of pro-poor distributional weights makes expanding the survey less attractive if the alternative way of obtaining additional tax revenue is an across-the-board income tax rate increase, while aversion to tax evasion makes it more attractive.     

Taxation, Uncertainty, and the Cost of Equity

Traditionally the pre-tax cost of capital is a function of the interest rate and the tax system. However, uncertainty implies that the market's required return is no single interest rate, but depends on risk. Different tax systems split risk differently between firm and government. Thus the required expected return after corporate taxes depends on the tax system. Expressions for this are derived, based on a CAPM-type model. The weighted average cost of capital is decreasing in the tax rate, even for fully equity financed projects. This effect can be substantial, but is neglected in much of the literature.     

Taxpayers' Behavioural Responses and Measures of Tax Compliance ‘Gaps’: A Critique and a New Measure

The work of Feldstein (1995 and 1999) has stimulated substantial conceptual and empirical advances in economists' approaches to analysing taxpayers' behavioural responses to changes in tax rates. Meanwhile, a largely independent literature proposing and applying alternative measures of tax compliance has also developed in recent years, which has sought to provide tax agencies with tools to identify the extent of tax non‐compliance as a first step to designing policies to improve compliance. In this context, measures of ‘tax gaps’ – the difference between actual tax collected and the potential tax collection under full compliance with the tax code – have become the primary measures of tax non‐compliance via (legal) avoidance and/or (illegal) evasion. In this paper, we argue that the tax gap as conventionally defined is conceptually flawed because it fails to incorporate behavioural responses by taxpayers. We show that conventional tax gap measures, which ignore the presence of behavioural responses, exaggerate the degree of non‐compliance. This potentially applies both to indirect taxes (such as the ‘VAT gap’) and direct (income) taxes. Further, where these conventional tax gap measures motivate reforms designed to increase the tax compliance rate, they will likely have a tax‐base‐reducing effect and hence generate a smaller increase in realised tax revenues than would be anticipated from the tax gap estimate.     

对控制我国税收成本的研究

当前控制我国税收成本应正确处理两种关系:依法治税与税收成本控制的关系;征税成本与纳税成本、短期成本与长期成本的关系。控制税收成本应采取以下措施:加强税收法制建设;完善税制和征管模式;建立税收成本核算制度;改革人员考核机制。     

税收征管目标及征纳双方的博弈分析

目前,国内关于税收征管目标有两种代表性观点:一是促使纳税人依法纳税;二是提高税收征管的质量和效率。应该同时吸收两种观点的合理要素,将税收征管目标重新界定为税收成本与税收流失总和最小化。在税收征纳关系中,税务机关追求的是税收成本与税收流失总和最小化,而纳税人追求的是自身利益最大化,两者根据对方的策略,做出符合各自目标的策略选择,从而形成税收征纳博弈关系。     

税收遵从成本对纳税遵从行为的影响

税收遵从成本和征管成本一同构成税收运行成本,是税收成本的重要组成部分。但由于税收遵从成本具有非显性的特征,往往被理论界及实践部门所忽视。本文借鉴国外税收遵从成本理论,分析了税收遵从成本对纳税遵从行为的影响,提出了优化我国税收制度、降低税收遵从成本的框架性建议。     

税收成本及优化分析

税收成本包括征税成本、纳税成本和社会成本。从总体上看,当前由于受诸多因素的影响,我国的税收成本偏高,暴露出一些亟待解决的问题。为此,应多方面寻求降低税收成本的途径,逐步提高税收工作效率,充分发挥税收的职能作用。     

降低税收遵从成本的理论与实践

本文对现代西方税收遵从成本理论的发展进行了简要的介绍,概述了美国、澳大利亚降低税收遵从成本的实践,并对如何降低我国的税收遵从成本提出了建议。     

博弈模型的扩展分析

偷逃税行为最现实的原因是纳税人和征税人之间的信息不对称。因此,其治理可从内外两个方面入手:"内"是在内部建立激励机制;"外"是通过制度的重新设计和调整,增强对纳税行为的控制和约束,堵塞纳税人的寻租途径。     

When You Know Your Neighbour Pays Taxes: Information,Peer Effects and Tax Compliance

In this paper, we suggest that individuals’ tax compliance behaviours are affected by the behaviour of their ‘neighbours’, or those about whom they may have information, whom they may know, or with whom they may interact on a regular basis. Individuals are more likely to file and to report their taxes when they believe that other individuals are also filing and reporting their taxes; conversely, when individuals believe that others are cheating on their taxes, they may well become cheaters themselves. We use experimental methods to test the role of such information about peer effects on compliance behaviour. In one treatment setting, we inform individuals about the frequency that their neighbours submit a tax return. In a second treatment setting, we inform them about the number of their neighbours who are audited, together with the penalties that they pay. In both cases, we examine the impact of information on filing behaviour and also on subsequent reporting behaviour. We find that providing information on whether one's neighbours are filing returns and/or reporting income has a statistically significant and economically large impact on individual filing and reporting decisions. However, this ‘neighbour’ information does not always improve compliance, depending on the exact content of the information.     

信息化环境下审计机关审计成本控制对策探究

审计成本管理是审计机关审计管理的重要组成内容。随着信息技术的发展及其在各个领域的应用,审计信息化已成为审计事业发展的必然,而审计的信息化给审计成本控制带来了新问题和新挑战。本文阐述了目前我国审计信息化的现状及特点,提出了信息化环境下审计机关控制审计成本的对策,以为信息化环境下的审计成本管理提供理论与实践依据。     

试论监督会计成本及其控制

我国的监督会计体系经过多年的探索、前进,进入了一个新的发展时期,但监督会计成本的居高不下,极大地影响了经济监督运行机制的效率.为此,本文拟从监督会计成本的形成入手,对当前监督会计成本的控制对策进行了广角透视与思考.     

电子商务环境下的国际逃税与避税

由于电子商务的迅速发展和各国税收立法的相对滞后,电子商务逃、避税问题日益突出。各国根据电子商务环境下的国际逃、避税的新特点,在原有防范措施的基础上,采取了一些新的措施,如加强税务机关自身信息化建设、提高网络技术、推行电子商务税收登记制度、从支付体系入手解决电子商务税收的征管问题,加强国际间的交流与合作等。     

论偷税的立法改进

我国现行《征管法》根据修订该法律时所能预见的情形,以及结合当时税收执法的实际情况,对偷税进行了界定,并规定了其法律责任,具有一定的历史意义。但是,随着人们法制观念的不断增强,现行《征管法》对偷税主体、偷税手段及其法律责任所做的规定开始显现其弊病和不适应性,必须对其进行全面的改进。     

对个人所得税费用扣除标准的若干思考

个人所得税改革涉及千家万户的切身利益,上调个人所得税费用扣除标准是众所瞩目的焦点问题,但在实践中很多人对个人所得税费用扣除标准的表述不够准确,甚至产生了歧义,必须为其正名;应规范分项减除"费用扣除标准",与通货膨胀率挂钩,实行指数化调整;实现内外统一的"费用扣除标准",使人人都能享受国民待遇.     

Tax Deductions and the Marginal Welfare Cost of Taxation

Recent work emphasizes the efficiency costs of tax deductions that distort the pattern of household spending. Using evidence on the sensitivity of taxable income to tax rates, this work suggests that the marginal welfare cost (MWC) of income taxes in the United States could be dramatically higher because of tax deductions, and might exceed unity. This paper develops an alternative approach for assessing the MWC using evidence on underlying parameters (e.g., labor supply elasticities, the demand elasticity for tax-favored goods). A MWC of around 0.3 to 0.5 seems more consistent with these parameter values, though this estimate is still significantly higher because of tax deductions.     

Do auditors constrain intertemporal income shifting in private companies?*

This study investigates the association between private company auditing and intertemporal income shifting. Using a large reduction in the Finnish corporate tax rate as a strong incentive for income shifting and financial statement data coupled with proprietary information from the tax authorities, we analyse accruals and cost stickiness of small private companies. Our results reveal significant differences in accrual income shifting between audited and unaudited companies, but only among companies that on average could anticipate the tax reduction the most. Further, we find auditors to restrict sticky selling, general, and administrative cost behaviour that we hypothesise is associated with illegal actions. Additional tests expose a nontrivial number of incorrectly unaudited companies which are the ones mostly associated with income shifting. Taken together, our study highlights the effects of audit exemption and the importance of enforcement while also suggesting that the audit process is value adding for the tax authorities.     

Thinking and Learning in the Tax Evasion Game

Equilibrium behaviour is one of the fundamental concepts of economics: that each player's strategy is a best response to their beliefs about other players' strategies (and that these beliefs are realised). It is therefore striking that one of the most utilised economic models of tax compliance (Allingham and Sandmo, 1972) lacks this property as random audit selection is not a best response for the tax administration. The game theory literature of tax compliance has solved the equilibrium under assumptions of perfect information, full rationality and representative agents (Reinganum and Wilde, 1986; Erard and Feinstein, 1994). The recent application of behavioural economics to tax compliance (Hashimzade et al., 2014) allows richer assumptions such as heterogeneity and asymmetric information to be included in agent‐based models. This paper investigates the tax administration's best‐response audit strategy with heterogeneous taxpayers, imperfect information and evolutionary survival of taxpayers. It finds that, under these conditions, the tax administration's best‐response audit strategy is an adaptive learning approach and not a well‐defined audit function. This fits with actual practice of ‘predictive analytics’ by OECD tax administrations. Behavioural game theory also predicts that when actors are information rich, adaptive learning will dominate abstract thinking.     

结合逃税的最优税收理论研究评述

最优税收理论主要研究税制的最优设计问题,而逃税理论主要致力于政府的最优执行问题,最近出现了将这两种理论结合起来的研究趋势。结合逃税的最优税收理论,包括最优所得税和最优商品税等内容,研究结果表明:结合逃税的最优税收理论并不能得出比标准最优税收理论更为明确的政策结论,其还有待于进一步的研究和发展。