公共服务满意度、税制公平与纳税遵从——来自中国的证据

公共服务与税收公平是影响纳税遵从的重要因素。基于中国背景,将公共服务满意度、税制公平与纳税遵从纳入公平理论框架分析三者之间的作用机制后发现:公共服务满意度影响纳税人对税制公平的评价,无论是对政府部门的日常行政服务还是其他公共部门的基础公共服务而言,公共服务满意度越高,纳税人对税制公平的评价就越高;同时,税制公平对纳税遵从有正向影响,纳税人对税制公平的评价越高,其纳税遵从度就越高;税制公平评价在公共服务满意度与纳税遵从之间发挥着中介的作用。因此,现阶段提高我国公众纳税遵从度可以从改善公共服务和强化税制公平两个角度入手。     

Tax morale,fiscal capacity,and war

This paper studies the effects of mobilization for war on the development of fiscal capacity and the values of tax compliance (tax morale). We propose a dynamic setting where governments may invest resources to improve the efficiency of the fiscal apparatus and the citizens' tax morality in order to raise the necessary revenues for the defense against a threat (external or internal), and parents optimally choose to transmit their preferences of tax compliance to children. Despite fiscal capacity and tax morale are initially substitutes, we show how a dynamic complementarity may arise in equilibrium from a more efficient transmission of the values of tax compliance in countries with high fiscal capacity, and this may explain why they tend to move together over time. Under reasonable conditions, we obtain that the effect of a higher threat of war on the steady-state level of the culture of tax compliance is negative when fiscal capacity is relatively low, and positive when the latter is large. We show cross-country evidence based on war frequency, fiscal capacity, and tax morale that is consistent with the results of our theory.     

The effect of tax enforcement on tax morale

In this paper we argue that tax enforcement is an additional contextual factor affecting tax morale, one of the most important determinants of tax compliance. By using a unique dataset that merges a representative sample of Italian households with administrative data on tax enforcement, we first find that tax morale is positively correlated with tax enforcement. Second, to deal with possible endogeneity of tax enforcement, we show that results are confirmed in an IV specification using the change in the tax gap at the provincial level as an instrument for tax enforcement. Finally, we provide evidence that the impact of tax enforcement and social environment is stronger at low quantiles of tax morale. Our results show that besides that of lowering the expected value of tax evasion, tax enforcement has an additional and indirect effect on tax compliance through its effect on tax morale.     

Can government improve tax compliance by adopting advanced information technology? Evidence from the Golden Tax Project III in China

This paper explores the tax compliance effects of adopting advanced information technology by tax bureau. Although many governments adopt advanced information technology in tax collection, little is known about the effect on tax compliance. Using difference-in-differences method, we exploit a staggered reform in which tax authorities adopt a comprehensive information reporting system in China, the Golden Tax Project III. Employing listed firm level data from 2010 to 2017, using book-tax difference and its remaining component which cannot be explained by earnings management as proxy measures of tax sheltering, we find that the adoption of GTP III decreases tax sheltering levels by a 1.88 percentage point. The effect is stronger for companies with higher tax rate. By exploring channels, our results suggest that the effect works by enhancing third-party reporting and by improving tax enforcement capacity in provinces that lack tax inspectors.     

Tax enforcement,tax compliance and tax morale in transition economies: A theoretical model

The focus of this paper is the analysis of the relationship between tax enforcement, tax compliance and tax morale within countries characterised by rapid introduction of market institutions and slow evolution of political regimes, such as transition economies. The paper investigates a coordination game in which the government is ex-ante committed to tax enforcement and can observe the proportion of tax-compliant agents in the economy. In turn, two groups of agents (third-party reporting and self-reported income) are keen to evade taxes unlawfully but have limited information on how many others evade taxes; their tax morale is therefore an endogenous function of agents' perception on tax compliance. The model predicts that the lower the quality of political institutions and the weaker tax morale, the less tax compliance can be achieved. The third-party reporting group will also be bearing higher tax burden than the self-reported income group. The model entails that having political institutions of good quality is not a sufficient condition to conduce to tax enforcement or tax compliance. Due to the endogenous role of tax morale, the government could be pushed ex-post towards poor or no tax enforcement. If good political institutions are not accompanied by good information about the enforcement of tax collection, there is scope for co-existence of poor tax enforcement, low tax compliance and weak tax morale. As such, this model well describes the tax evasion behaviour observed since the outset of transition from planned to market economy.     

Audit Probability versus Effectiveness: The Beckerian Approach Revisited

The Beckerian approach to tax compliance examines how a tax authority can maximize social welfare by trading‐off audit probability against the fine rate on undeclared tax. This paper offers an alternative examination of the privately optimal behavior of a tax authority tasked by government to maximize expected revenue. The tax authority is able to trade‐off audit probability against audit effectiveness, but takes the fine rate as fixed in the short run. I find that the tax authority's privately optimal audit strategy does not maximize voluntary compliance, and that voluntary compliance is nonmonotonic as a function of the tax authority's budget. Finally, the tax authority's privately optimal effective fine rate on undeclared tax does not exceed two at interior optima.     

Tax Morale in Transition Countries

This article tries to reduce the lack of tax compliance research analysing tax morale in transition countries. The empirical analysis using tax morale as a dependent variable working with World Values Survey data indicates that there is a significantly higher tax morale in Central and Eastern European than in former Soviet Union countries. This difference has increased during the transition process. Furthermore, the article shows that factors such as trust in the legal system and the government have a significant positive effect on tax morale in transition economies.     

税收遵从成本对企业纳税遵从的影响分析——基于企业逃税模型的视角

在传统的A-S逃税模型中加入税收遵从成本因素分析以及对纳税遵从的影响,只适用于个人纳税。运用企业逃税模型分析税收遵从成本对企业纳税遵从的影响不仅符合企业实际,而且在我国更有现实意义。当前,应完善税收征管,简化税制,优化税收环境,从根本上降低企业税收遵从成本。     

Income distribution and equilibrium multiplicity in a stigma-based model of tax evasion

This paper incorporates continuous income distribution into the stigma-based model of tax compliance. The paper investigates the effect of income distribution on the existence of multiple equilibria, and characterizes the conditions under which multiple equilibria emerge. Precisely, multiple equilibria exist if taxpayer incomes are sufficiently homogeneous, because the ‘social coordination effect’ dominates the ‘individual characteristics effect’. Numerical simulations show that the main proposition is robust to allowing two-step audit policies on the part of the tax agency, under the presumption that the best (or good) equilibrium is selected whenever there are multiple equilibria. As a byproduct, the effect of various forms of tax reforms on the optimal two-step audit policy, the equilibrium compliance, and fiscal revenue is analyzed.     

Audit Publicity and Tax Compliance: A Natural Experiment

We use confidential data on value-added tax payments at the sector level, in two large Italian cities, to estimate the effect of audit publicity on the tax compliance of local sellers. By employing a difference-in-differences identification strategy, we find that such publicity has a positive effect on fiscal declarations made shortly thereafter. The results suggest that increasing awareness on future audits via the media can be an important instrument in the hands of tax authorities.     

Tax havens compliance with international standards: A temporal perspective

This paper contributes to the debate centering on the fight against aggressive tax avoidance practices through the release of international standards. We develop a model in which identical tax havens decide upon their compliance date while competing for onshore capital. The timing of these decisions depends on the effects of two opposing forces. One force is linked to the tax sensitivity of international capital and the other to the reaction of nearby potential capital. When the former force dominates, asynchronous compliance arises, which occurs even with identical tax havens and perfect information. However, when the latter force dominates, tax havens comply simultaneously. In any case, the loss of tax base within the onshore region is minimized when compliance is simultaneous and occurs at the earliest possible date. Surprisingly, compliance of just one tax haven is not necessarily better than no compliance at all.     

Kleptocracy and tax evasion under resource abundance

Evidence has shown that petroleum wealth is associated with less transparency and at the same time less tax collection. In this paper, we find that the two issues are linked through the citizens’ tax evasion behavior. We develop a model to explain this link and conduct extensive empirical tests of its validity. The explanation is that officials tradeoff greater transparency to improve tax compliance against less transparency to increase gains from corruption. Oil windfalls diminish tax revenue needs, causing officials to optimize on less transparency. Seeing this, citizens optimize on a lower level of tax compliance. At equilibrium, both decline with a positive oil shock. We also study the alternative channel in which tax compliance responds to enforcement. Transparency is found to be the more robust channel. Ignoring citizens’ strategic behavior would lead to predicting suboptimal investment in state capacity for tax enforcement. Using giant oil discoveries data combined with oil price data, we develop a dynamic composite instrument and estimate the model with a dynamic panel system generalized method of moments. We find robust support for our explanation and the model's deep structure for 130+ countries and the 1980–2010 period.     

Unemployment, tax evasion and the slippery slope framework

The proposed theoretical work introduces the basic insights of the ??slippery slope?? framework into the benchmark macroeconomic model of the labour market in order to study the relation between tax compliance, tax evasion and unemployment. This paper shows that the firm??s decision to evade taxes also depends on trust in tax authorities and affects one of the most important macroeconomic variables: the unemployment rate. Also, the model is able to mimic the crucial interaction between trust and power and its effects on tax compliance. The main result is that with the ??right mix?? of policy tools of deterrence, trust in tax authorities is maximised, tax compliance increases and a reduction of tax evasion may decrease unemployment.     

Tax evasion and tax morale: A social network analysis

We study the effects of tax morale and social norms on tax evasion when individuals interact in a network. We present a model that incorporates incentives for tax compliance in the form of punishment and fines, tax morale, and reputation for social behaviour. We assume that individuals adjust their tax morale by observing the neighbours' tax morale. We simulate the model for different values of the parameters and show that the steady-state share of taxpayers as opposed to tax-evaders is affected by the probability of finding like-minded peers in the reference group (network integration), the weight that individuals attribute to reputation, and the share of individuals who update their tax morale. Last, we consider the possibility of a fiscal authority using the knowledge of the network structure and targeting ‘central’ individuals. We show that by positively affecting the tax morale of individuals whose influence within the network is high, a fiscal authority can increase tax compliance.     

Tax Morale, Rule-Governed Behaviour and Trust

This paper outlines the relevance of rules to understand tax morale. It tries to find explanations why taxpayers obey, rather than simply evade taxes. The development of a typology of taxpayers shows that the same tax rules can have different compliance effects. Furthermore, the paper provides evidence with two data sets, the World Values Survey and the Taxpayers Opinion Survey that trust in public officials and the legal system have a significant positive effect on tax morale.     

不同监督情境下政府创新支持对企业研发投入的影响——基于农业上市公司的实证研究

近年来,“三农”问题受到极大关注。为了应对外部资源、环境、科学技术等多重压力对农业升级与发展的影响,政府出台了诸多政策支持农业企业的技术研发与创新。本文从政府干预视角分析政府补助和税费返还两种形式的政府创新支持政策对农业企业研发投入的影响,重点分析机构投资者与大股东参与公司内部治理以及社会审计事务机构参与公司外部治理这两者所发挥的不同监督作用。研究发现：第一,不同形式的政府创新支持（政府补助和税费返还）对农业企业研发投入的影响并不一致。政府补助产生替代效应,税费返还则产生互补效应。第二,持股监督（机构投资者和大股东的持股比例上升）能增强政府补助对农业企业研发投入的替代效应,也能增强税费返还对农业企业研发投入的互补效应。第三,审计监督（社会审计事务机构的审计意见）会减弱政府补助支持对农业企业研发投入的替代效应,也会减弱税费返还对农业企业研发投入的互补效应。本文的研究发现为政府制定适宜的创新支持政策,以及合理发挥持股监督与审计监督的内外部治理作用,提供一定的决策依据和理论支持。     

Tax morale affects tax compliance: Evidence from surveys and an artefactual field experiment

Our working hypothesis is that cross-cultural differences in tax compliance behavior have foundations in the institutions of tax administration and citizen assessment of the quality of governance. Tax compliance being a complex behavioral issue, its investigation requires use of a variety of methods and data sources. Results from artefactual field experiments conducted in countries with substantially different political histories and records of governance quality demonstrate that observed differences in tax compliance levels persist over alternative levels of enforcement. The experimental results are shown to be robust by replicating them for the same countries using survey response measures of tax compliance.     

Imperfect Tax Compliance and the Optimal Provision of Public Goods

Our aim in this paper is to investigate whether the presence of imperfect income tax compliance affects the optimal provision of public goods within a framework in which public expenditure is financed by a general income tax that also accomplishes redistributive goals. We first derive the income tax structure, and then a generalized Samuelson rule. We argue that, under imperfect income tax compliance, it is desirable to distort public–good supply downwards, in the sense that the sum of marginal rates of substitution between public and private consumption must exceed their marginal rate of transformation.     

企业税收遵从成本影响因素分析

根据国内外关于税收遵从成本影响因素的研究结论并借助因子分析法发现,企业认为影响税收遵从成本的主要因素是税收征管效率、纳税服务体系的完善、税收制度的复杂性与公平性、税率的高低,税法的稳定性与明确性及企业的纳税素质。因此,制定统一的税收法典与规范税收各项制度是降低企业税收遵从成本的关键所在。     

Fairness in tax compliance: A political competition model

This paper analyzes the political economy of income redistribution when voters are concerned about fairness in tax compliance. We consider a two‐stage model where there is a two‐party competition over the tax rate and over the intensity of the tax enforcement policy in the first stage, and voters decide about their level of tax compliance in the second stage. We find that if the concern about fairness in tax compliance is high enough, a liberal middle‐income majority of voters may block any income redistribution policy. Alternatively, we find an equilibrium in which the preferences of the median voter are ignored in favor of a coalition formed by a group of relatively poor voters and the richest voters. In this equilibrium income redistribution prevails with no tax enforcement.