Download or read book Why People Pay Taxes written by Joel Slemrod and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experts discuss strategies for curtailing tax evasion

Download or read book Optimal Taxation with Costly Enforcement and Evasion written by Louis Kaplow and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper analyzes the relationship between optimal taxation -- where the literature considers raising revenue with minimum distortion -- and optimal tax enforcement where much of the literature emphasizes raising revenue at the least cost. A central question concerns the extent to which revenue should be raised through higher tax rates, which distort behavior, or greater enforcement, which distorts behavior because it raises marginal effective tax rates and also entails direct resource costs. It is demonstrated that, under each of several assumptions about evasion and enforcement, some expenditure on enforcement is optimal despite its resource cost, its distortionary effect, and the availability of other revenue sources having no enforcement costs. Rules for optimal tax rates and enforcement expenditures are derived, which also indicate the marginal cost of government funds and optimal enforcement priorities for a tax collection agency.

Download or read book Tax Systems written by Joel Slemrod and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2013-12-13 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An approach to taxation that goes beyond an emphasis on tax rates to consider such aspects as administration, compliance, and remittance. Despite its theoretical elegance, the standard optimal tax model has significant limitations. In this book, Joel Slemrod and Christian Gillitzer argue that tax analysis must move beyond the emphasis on optimal tax rates and bases to consider such aspects of taxation as administration, compliance, and remittance. Slemrod and Gillitzer explore what they term a tax-systems approach, which takes tax evasion seriously; revisits the issue of remittance, or who writes the check to cover tax liability (employer or employee, retailer or consumer); incorporates administrative and compliance costs; recognizes a range of behavioral responses to tax rates; considers nonstandard instruments, including tax base breadth and enforcement effort; and acknowledges that tighter enforcement is sometimes a more socially desirable way to raise revenue than an increase in statutory tax rates. Policy makers, Slemrod and Gillitzer argue, would be well advised to recognize the interrelationship of tax rates, bases, enforcement, and administration, and acknowledge that tax policy is really tax-systems policy.

Download or read book The Costs of Taxation and the Marginal Cost of Funds written by Mr.Joel Slemrod and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1995-08-01 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is argued that taxation causes three kinds of deadweight losses and two types of direct costs. The deadweight losses arise from substitution, evasion, and avoidance activities while the direct costs are administrative and compliance costs. Some of these social costs tend to be discontinuous and/or nonconvex. Because most models of taxation ignore some components of the social costs of taxation, their conclusions cannot be of a general nature. An alternative approach to policy evaluation is to rely on a marginal efficiency cost of funds rule which can indicate appropriate directions of reforms. The paper discusses its merits, applicability, and limitations, as well as its relationship to other concepts.

Download or read book Tax Morale What Drives People and Businesses to Pay Tax written by OECD and published by OECD Publishing. This book was released on 2019-09-11 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlocking what drives tax morale – the intrinsic willingness to pay tax – can greatly assist governments in the design of tax policies and their administration, particularly in developing countries where compliance rates are low. This report builds on previous OECD research to identify some of the key socio-economic and institutional drivers of tax morale across developing countries, and seeks to test for evidence of the social contract by examining the impact of public services on tax morale. It also uses new data on tax certainty as an entry point to explore tax morale in businesses, where existing research is very limited. Finally, the report identifies a range of factors related to the tax system that may affect business decision making, how they vary across regions, and suggests some areas for future research. Overall, the report provides a range of suggestions for further work, and how tax morale considerations can be integrated into holistic tax compliance strategies.

Download or read book Tax Evasion written by Paul Webley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1991-08-30 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores tax evasion through an extensive psychological approach, surveys and official records to simulate real-world cases.

Download or read book Global Tax Fairness written by Thomas Pogge and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-02-04 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book addresses sixteen different reform proposals that are urgently needed to correct the fault lines in the international tax system as it exists today, and which deprive both developing and developed countries of critical tax resources. It offers clear and concrete ideas on how the reforms can be achieved and why they are important for a more just and equitable global system to prevail. The key to reducing the tax gap and consequent human rights deficit in poor countries is global financial transparency. Such transparency is essential to curbing illicit financial flows that drain less developed countries of capital and tax revenues, and are an impediment to sustainable development. A major break-through for financial transparency is now within reach. The policy reforms outlined in this book not only advance tax justice but also protect human rights by curtailing illegal activity and making available more resources for development. While the reforms are realistic they require both political and an informed and engaged civil society that can put pressure on governments and policy makers to act.

Download or read book Law and Social Norms written by Eric Posner and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the role of law in a society in which order is maintained mostly through social norms, trust, and nonlegal sanctions? Eric Posner argues that social norms are sometimes desirable yet sometimes odious, and that the law is critical to enhancing good social norms and undermining bad ones. But he also argues that the proper regulation of social norms is a delicate and complex task, and that current understanding of social norms is inadequate for guiding judges and lawmakers. What is needed, and what this book offers, is a model of the relationship between law and social norms. The model shows that people's concern with establishing cooperative relationships leads them to engage in certain kinds of imitative behavior. The resulting behavioral patterns are called social norms. Posner applies the model to several areas of law that involve the regulation of social norms, including laws governing gift-giving and nonprofit organizations; family law; criminal law; laws governing speech, voting, and discrimination; and contract law. Among the engaging questions posed are: Would the legalization of gay marriage harm traditional married couples? Is it beneficial to shame criminals? Why should the law reward those who make charitable contributions? Would people vote more if non-voters were penalized? The author approaches these questions using the tools of game theory, but his arguments are simply stated and make no technical demands on the reader.

Download or read book The Economics of Tax Avoidance and Evasion written by Dhammika Dharmapala and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2017-04-28 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tax compliance issues enjoy an unprecedented degree of public attention today and are of great importance to governments and policymaking. This single volume provides an overview of some of the most significant contributions to the economic analysis of tax avoidance and evasion and also sheds light on broader questions of social organization, behaviour, and compliance with the law. With an original introduction by the editor, this insightful book provides researchers and students with a guide to the fundamental intellectual developments that have shaped the economic understanding of tax avoidance and evasion, along with a framework for placing these contributions in their intellectual context.

Download or read book The Hidden Wealth of Nations written by Gabriel Zucman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-09-22 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are well aware of the rise of the 1% as the rapid growth of economic inequality has put the majority of the world’s wealth in the pockets of fewer and fewer. One much-discussed solution to this imbalance is to significantly increase the rate at which we tax the wealthy. But with an enormous amount of the world’s wealth hidden in tax havens—in countries like Switzerland, Luxembourg, and the Cayman Islands—this wealth cannot be fully accounted for and taxed fairly. No one, from economists to bankers to politicians, has been able to quantify exactly how much of the world’s assets are currently hidden—until now. Gabriel Zucman is the first economist to offer reliable insight into the actual extent of the world’s money held in tax havens. And it’s staggering. In The Hidden Wealth of Nations, Zucman offers an inventive and sophisticated approach to quantifying how big the problem is, how tax havens work and are organized, and how we can begin to approach a solution. His research reveals that tax havens are a quickly growing danger to the world economy. In the past five years, the amount of wealth in tax havens has increased over 25%—there has never been as much money held offshore as there is today. This hidden wealth accounts for at least $7.6 trillion, equivalent to 8% of the global financial assets of households. Fighting the notion that any attempts to vanquish tax havens are futile, since some countries will always offer more advantageous tax rates than others, as well the counter-argument that since the financial crisis tax havens have disappeared, Zucman shows how both sides are actually very wrong. In The Hidden Wealth of Nations he offers an ambitious agenda for reform, focused on ways in which countries can change the incentives of tax havens. Only by first understanding the enormity of the secret wealth can we begin to estimate the kind of actions that would force tax havens to give up their practices. Zucman’s work has quickly become the gold standard for quantifying the amount of the world’s assets held in havens. In this concise book, he lays out in approachable language how the international banking system works and the dangerous extent to which the large-scale evasion of taxes is undermining the global market as a whole. If we are to find a way to solve the problem of increasing inequality, The Hidden Wealth of Nations is essential reading.

Download or read book Handbook of Public Economics written by Martin Feldstein and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2002-01-25 with total page 744 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Field of Public Economics has been changing rapidly in recent years, and the sixteen chapters contained in this Handbook survey many of the new developments. As a field, Public Economics is defined by its objectives rather than its techniques and much of what is new is the application of modern methods of economic theory and econometrics to problems that have been addressed by economists for over two hundred years. More generally, the discussion of public finance issues also involves elements of political science, finance and philosophy. These connections are evidence in several of the chapters that follow. Public Economics is the positive and normative study of government's effect on the economy. We attempt to explain why government behaves as it does, how its behavior influences the behavior of private firms and households, and what the welfare effects of such changes in behavior are. Following Musgrave (1959) one may imagine three purposes for government intervention in the economy: allocation, when market failure causes the private outcome to be Pareto inefficient, distribution, when the private market outcome leaves some individuals with unacceptably low shares in the fruits of the economy, and stabilization, when the private market outcome leaves some of the economy's resources underutilized. The recent trend in economic research has tended to emphasize the character of stabilization problems as problems of allocation in the labor market. The effects that government intervention can have on the allocation and distribution of an economy's resources are described in terms of efficiency and incidence effects. These are the primary measures used to evaluate the welfare effects of government policy.

Download or read book Optimal Tax Administration written by Mr.Michael Keen and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2017-01-20 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper sets out a framework for analyzing optimal interventions by a tax administration, one that parallels and can be closely integrated with established frameworks for thinking about optimal tax policy. Its key contribution is the development of a summary measure of the impact of administrative interventions—the “enforcement elasticity of tax revenue”—that is a sufficient statistic for the behavioral response to such interventions, much as the elasticity of taxable income serves as a sufficient statistic for the response to tax rates. Amongst the applications are characterizations of the optimal balance between policy and administrative measures, and of the optimal compliance gap.

Download or read book The Modern VAT written by Mr.Liam P. Ebrill and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2001-11-05 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Value-added tax, or VAT, first introduced less than 50 years ago, is now a pivotal component of tax systems around the world. The rapid and seemingly irresistible rise of the VAT is probably the most important tax development of the latter twentieth century, and certainly the most breathtaking. Written by a team of experts from the IMF, this book examines the remarkable spread and current reach of the innovative tax and draws lessons about the design and implementation of the VAT, as experienced by different countries around the world. How efficient is it as a tax, is it fair, and is it suitable for all countries? These are among the questions raised. This highly informative and well-researched book also looks at the likely future of the tax.

Download or read book Tax By Design written by Stuart Adam and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-09 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on the findings of a commission chaired by James Mirrlees, this volume presents a coherent picture of tax reform whose aim is to identify the characteristics of a good tax system for any open developed economy, assess the extent to which the UK tax system conforms to these ideals, and recommend how it might be reformed in that direction.

Download or read book Current Challenges in Revenue Mobilization Improving Tax Compliance written by International Monetary Fund and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2015-01-29 with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper addresses core challenges that all tax administrations face in dealing with noncompliance—which are now receiving renewed attention. Long a priority in developing countries, assuring strong compliance has acquired greater priority in countries facing intensified revenue needs, and is critical for fairness and statebuilding. Series: Policy Papers

Download or read book Optimal Redistributive Taxation written by Matti Tuomala and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-21 with total page 631 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tax systems raise large amounts of revenue for funding public sector's activities, and tax/transfer policy, together with public provision of education, health care, and social services, play a crucial role in treating the symptoms and the causes of poverty. The normative analysis is crucial for tax/transfer design because it makes it possible to assess separately how changes in the redistributive criterion of the government, and changes in the size of the behavioural responses to taxes and transfers, affect the optimal tax/transfer system. Optimal tax theory provides a way of thinking rigorously about these trade-offs. Written primarily for graduate students and researchers, this volume is intended as a textbook and research monograph, connecting optimal tax theory to tax policy. It comments on some policy recommendations of the Mirrlees Review, and builds on the authors work on public economics, optimal tax theory, behavioural public economics, and income inequality. The book explains in depth the Mirrlees model and presents various extensions of it. The first set of extensions considers changing the preferences for consumption and work: behavioural-economic modifications (such as positional externalities, prospect theory, paternalism, myopic behaviour and habit formation) but also heterogeneous work preferences (besides differences in earnings ability). The second set of modifications concerns the objective of the government. The book explains the differences in optimal redistributive tax systems when governments - instead of maximising social welfare - minimise poverty or maximise social welfare based on rank order or charitable conservatism social welfare functions. The third set of extensions considers extending the Mirrlees income tax framework to allow for differential commodity taxes, capital income taxation, public goods provision, public provision of private goods, and taxation commodities that generate externalities. The fourth set of extensions considers incorporating a number of important real-word extensions such as tagging of tax schedules to certain groups of tax payers. In all extensions, the book illustrates the main mechanisms using advanced numerical simulations.

Download or read book Cheating the Government written by Frank Alan Cowell and published by MIT Press (MA). This book was released on 1990 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book he systematically studies the underground economy to examine how certain types of economic analysis can be applied to tax evaders.