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• 15 Dec 2020
• Working Paper Summaries

Designing, Not Checking, for Policy Robustness: An Example with Optimal Taxation

The approach used by most economists to check academic research results is flawed for policymaking and evaluation. The authors propose an alternative method for designing economic policy analyses that might be applied to a wide range of economic policies.

• 31 Aug 2020
• Research & Ideas

State and Local Governments Peer Into the Pandemic Abyss

State and local governments that rely heavily on sales tax revenue face an increasing financial burden absent federal aid, says Daniel Green. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 12 May 2020

Elusive Safety: The New Geography of Capital Flows and Risk

Examining motives and incentives behind the growing international flows of US-denominated securities, this study finds that dollar-denominated capital flows are increasingly intermediated by tax haven financial centers and nonbank financial institutions.

• 01 Apr 2019
• What Do You Think?

Does Our Bias Against Federal Deficits Need Rethinking?

SUMMING UP. Readers lined up to comment on James Heskett's question on whether federal deficit spending as supported by Modern Monetary Theory is good or evil. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 20 Mar 2019

In the Shadows? Informal Enterprise in Non-Democracies

With the informal economy representing a third of the GDP in an average Middle East and North African country, why do chronically indebted regimes tolerate such a large and untaxed shadow economy? Among this study’s findings, higher rates of public sector employment correlate with greater permissibility of firm informality.

• 30 Jan 2019

Understanding Different Approaches to Benefit-Based Taxation

Benefit-based taxation—where taxes align with benefits from state activities—enjoys popular support and an illustrious history, but scholars are confused over how it should work, and confusion breeds neglect. To clear up this confusion and demonstrate its appeal, we provide novel graphical explanations of the main approaches to it and show its general applicability.

• 02 Jul 2018

Corporate Tax Cuts Don't Increase Middle Class Incomes

New research by Ethan Rouen and colleagues suggests that corporate tax cuts contribute to income inequality. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 13 May 2018

Corporate Tax Cuts Increase Income Inequality

This paper examines corporate tax reform by estimating the causal effect of state corporate tax cuts on top income inequality. Results suggest that, while corporate tax cuts increase investment, the gains from this investment are concentrated on top earners, who may also exploit additional strategies to increase the share of total income that accrues to the top 1 percent.

• 08 Feb 2018

What’s Missing From the Debate About Trump’s Tax Plan

At the end of the day, tax policy is more about values than dollars. And it's still not too late to have a real discussion over the Trump tax plan, says Matthew Weinzierl. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 24 Oct 2017

Tax Reform is on the Front Burner Again. Here’s Why You Should Care

As debate begins around the Republican tax reform proposal, Mihir Desai and Matt Weinzierl discuss the first significant tax legislation in 30 years. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 08 Aug 2017

The Role of Taxes in the Disconnect Between Corporate Performance and Economic Growth

This paper offers evidence of potential issues with the current United States system of taxation on foreign corporate profits. A reduction in the US tax rate and the move to a territorial tax system from a worldwide system could better align economic growth with growth in corporate profits by encouraging firms to invest domestically and repatriate foreign earnings.

• 07 Nov 2016

Corporate Tax Strategies Mirror Personal Returns of Top Execs

Top executives who are inclined to reduce personal taxes might also benefit shareholders in their companies, concludes research by Gerardo Pérez Cavazos and Andreya M. Silva. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 18 Apr 2016

Popular Acceptance of Morally Arbitrary Luck and Widespread Support for Classical Benefit-Based Taxation

This paper presents survey evidence that the normative views of most Americans appear to include ambivalence toward the egalitarianism that has been so influential in contemporary political philosophy and implicitly adopted by modern optimal tax theory. Insofar as this finding is valid, optimal tax theorists ought to consider capturing this ambivalence in their work, as well.

• 20 Nov 2015

Impact Evaluation Methods in Public Economics: A Brief Introduction to Randomized Evaluations and Comparison with Other Methods

Dina Pomeranz examines the use by public agencies of rigorous impact evaluations to test the effectiveness of citizen efforts.

• 07 May 2014

How Should Wealth Be Redistributed?

SUMMING UP James Heskett's readers weigh in on Thomas Piketty and how wealth disparity is burdening society. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

• 08 Sep 2009

The Height Tax, and Other New Ways to Think about Taxation

The notion of levying higher taxes on tall people—an idea offered largely tongue in cheek—presents an ideal way to highlight the shortcomings of current tax policy and how to make it better. Harvard Business School professor Matthew C. Weinzierl looks at modern trends in taxation. Key concepts include: Studies show that each inch of height is associated with about a 2 percent higher wage among white males in the United States. If we as a society are uncomfortable taxing height, maybe we should reconsider our comfort level for taxing ability (as currently happens with the progressive income tax). For Weinzierl, the key to explaining the apparent disconnect between theory and intuition starts with the particular goal for tax policy assumed in the standard framework. That goal is to minimize the total sacrifice borne by those who pay taxes. Behind the scenes, important trends are evolving in tax policy. Value-added taxes, for example, are generally seen as efficient by tax economists, but such taxes can bear heavily on the poor if not balanced with other changes to the system. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

• 02 Mar 2007

What Is the Government’s Role in US Health Care?

Healthcare will grab ever more headlines in the U.S. in the coming months, says Jim Heskett. Any service that is on track to consume 40 percent of the gross national product of the world's largest economy by the year 2050 will be hard to ignore. But are we addressing healthcare cost issues with the creativity they deserve? What do you think? Closed for comment; 0 Comments.

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Latest Work

Capital Allowances in Europe, 2024

Although sometimes overlooked in discussions about corporate taxation, capital allowances play an important role in a country’s corporate tax base and can impact investment decisions—with far-reaching economic consequences.

Real Estate Transaction Tax Rates in German States

The real estate transaction tax is levied on the gross sales value of a property when it changes ownership, without deductions for investment or purchasing costs. This makes the tax particularly harmful to investment in buildings and structures.

Sales Tax Holidays by State, 2024

However well-intended they may be, sales tax holidays remain the same as they always have been—ineffective and inefficient.

State Sales Tax Breadth and Reliance, Fiscal Year 2022

An ideal sales tax is imposed on all final consumption, both goods and services, but excludes intermediate transactions to avoid tax pyramiding.

Patent Box Regimes in Europe, 2024

The aim of patent boxes is generally to encourage and attract local research and development (R&D) and to incentivize businesses to locate IP in the country. However, patent boxes can introduce another level of complexity to a tax system, and some recent research questions whether patent boxes are actually effective in driving innovation.

Puerto Rican Competitiveness and Pillar Two

Puerto Rico, a US territory with a limited ability to set its own tax policies, will be the first part of the US to be substantially affected by Pillar Two, the global tax agreement that seeks to establish a 15 percent minimum tax rate on corporate income.

State and Local Sales Tax Rates, Midyear 2024

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How Are Olympians and Attendees Taxed?

Good policy leads to more tax cuts for west virginia, current challenges in vaping markets, space race and the cost of industrial policy, frustrated with tipping no tax on tips could make it worse.

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IRS - Taxpayer compliance and burden research

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This section contains research papers, publications, and other documents dealing with taxpayer compliance and burden research. You can learn about the tax gap, specific compliance analysis issues, and studies of the causes of compliance behavior, and the drivers of tax compliance burden. Below are links to the topics within this section, as well as some examples of what you can find within each topic.

The tax gap is the difference between true tax liability for a given tax year and the amount that is paid on time. It is comprised of the nonfiling gap, the underreporting gap, and the underpayment gap.

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• IRS reports and presentations on the size of the tax gap for various tax years
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Compliance analysis

This section contains a wide variety of papers related to taxpayer compliance, including:

• Overviews of National Research Program (NRP) data
• Analyses of NRP data
• Estimates of noncompliance other than the tax gap

Understanding taxpayer compliance behavior

While the tax gap reflects the extent of taxpayer noncompliance, it is also important to understand why taxpayers are compliant or noncompliant. This section contains papers that seek to provide insights into taxpayer behavior through:

• Econometric analyses
• Lab experiments
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• Other modeling
• Taxpayer burden research
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eJournal of Tax Research

The eJournal of Tax Research is a peer reviewed journal published twice a year by the School of Accounting, Auditing and Taxation. It’s ranked A by the Australian Business Deans Council and attracts contributions from researchers and academics who are international leaders in their fields.  

With its strong focus on the interdisciplinary nature of taxation, it provides a platform for the taxation research community, practitioners and policy makers to stay abreast of important new research and tax related issues.  

We welcome new submissions of unpublished work on a wide range of tax topics.

Read the current issue and access past issues of the eJournal of Tax Research. 

Guide to submissions 

New submission of original contributions on any topic of tax interest is welcomed, and should be sent through ScholarOne . Submission of a manuscript is taken to imply that it is an unpublished work and has not already been submitted for publication elsewhere. 

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Books   Sandford, Cedric, Michael Godwin and Peter Hartwick (1989), Administrative and Compliance Costs of Taxation, Fiscal Publications, Bath Sandford, C (ed.) (1995), Taxation Compliance Costs: Measurement and Policy, Fiscal Publications, Bath 

Journal articles  Carney, T. and G. Ramia (2002), "Mutuality, Mead & McClure: More 'Big M's for the Unemployed?", Australian Journal of Social Issues, 37(3): 277-300.  Hite, Peggy and Michael Roberts (1991), "An Experimental Investigation of Taxpayer Judgments on Rate Structure in the Individual Income Tax System", Journal of the American Taxation Association, 13(2): 47-63 

Chapter from a book  Baxter, J. (1998), "Moving Towards Equality? Questions of Change and Equality in Household Work Patterns" in M. Gatens and A. Mackinon (eds), Gender and Institutions: Welfare, Work and Citizenship, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 19-37 

Working papers, Conference papers, etc.  Beer, G. (1996), "An Examination of the Impact of the Family Tax Initiative", National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM) Policy Paper No. 3, University of Canberra, Canberra.  Gerbing, Monica (1988), "An Empirical Study of Taxpayer Perceptions of Fairness", Paper presented at the American Accounting Association Annual Meeting, Orlando, Florida 

Government reports, Public addresses, etc.  Cass, B. (1986), "Income Support for Families with Children", Social Security Review Issues Paper No. 1, AGPS, Canberra.  Howard, J. (2003), Address to the Australian American Association Luncheon, Melbourne, 2 September, available at  http://www.pm.gov.au/

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• Scientia Associate Professor Yan Xu, School of Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, UNSW Business School, UNSW Sydney

For enquiries about the journal and submissions of papers please email the production editor: [email protected].

Editorial guidance is provided by an international panel of eminent tax academics and professionals:

• Professor Robin Boadway, Department of Economics, Queen’s University
• Professor Cynthia Coleman, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney
• Professor Graeme Cooper, Faculty of Law, University of Sydney
• Professor Robert Deutsch, School of Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, UNSW Sydney
• Emeritus Professor Chris Evans, School of Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, UNSW Sydney
• Emeritus Professor Judith Freedman, Faculty of Law, Oxford University
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• Professor Jennie Granger, School of Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, UNSW Sydney
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• Professor Jeyapalan Kasipillai, School of Business, Monash University Sunway Campus
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• Professor Charles McLure Jr., Hoover Institution, Stanford University
• Emeritus Professor Fiona Martin,  School of Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, UNSW Sydney
• Professor Dale Pinto, Curtin Business School, Curtin University
• Professor John Prebble, Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington
• Professor Adrian Sawyer, Department of Accounting and Information Systems, University of Canterbury
• Professor Joel Slemrod, University of Michigan Business School
• Professor Natalie Stoianoff, Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney
• Professor Jeffrey Waincymer, Faculty of Law, Monash University
• Emeritus Professor Neil Warren, School of Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, UNSW Sydney
• Professor Robin Woellner, UNSW Business School, UNSW Sydney

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• PRACTICE & PROCEDURES

Practical highlights of recent tax research

• Individual Income Taxation
• Personal Financial Planning
• Tax Planning
• Practice Management & Professional Standards
• Client communications
• IRS Practice & Procedure
• Collections, Liens & Levies
• Employee Benefits

Perhaps more than ever, recent years demonstrate the increasing importance of taxation for both businesses and individuals. This article distills research published in tax and accounting journals of interest to tax practitioners. The first study presents evidence on the importance of training for tax professionals in dealing with contentious client interactions. The next three studies provide insights on taxpayer responses to tax incentives and government efforts to increase tax compliance and awareness. A final study examines how companies adjust their tax planning decisions in response to those of their competitors. Collectively, these studies have been published in The Journal of the American Taxation Association , National Tax Journal ,and Journal of Accounting and Economics.

A recent study in The Journal of the American Taxation Association examines the relationship between tax professionals and their clients when a disagreement occurs due to a controversial tax position. 1 In contrast to the frequently researched subject of auditor - client relationships, tax professional - client interactions are seldom examined. Phase one of the two - phase study surveyed public accounting professionals to gather information about the types of contentious client situations that occur, the persuasion tactics used, and the relationship status between tax professional and client after resolution of the issue. Based on information gathered in phase one, the authors created a second survey to analyze details about the nature of contentious interactions, persuasion tactics used, negotiation training received, and recommendations from survey respondents.

Authors Donna Bobek, Derek Dalton, Amy Hageman, and Robin Radtke sent 5,200 emails to a list of South Carolina CPAs for phase one and 4,260 emails from the same list for the follow - up survey. The 140 respondents averaged over 25 years of experience, with the majority serving as partner or equivalent, and were employed by a variety of firm types and sizes.

Survey results show that the most challenging interactions occurred when a client demanded an overly aggressive position to reduce taxes. Professionals with less experience, and concerned about client retention, felt the most pressure. While most respondents indicated the need for training in the areas of negotiation, persuasion, and interpersonal skills, only 10% of professionals in the study had such a program in their firm.

The authors of the research, titled "An Experiential Investigation of Tax Professionals' Contentious Interactions With Clients," conclude with several recommendations. Firms need to develop formal training and mentoring relationships. Professionals should be clear in their communications with clients and should maintain detailed documentation of contentious conversations. The survey revealed that the most effective tactic to persuade a contentious client is to express concerns over penalty exposure. The authors suggest that less - experienced professionals should seek advice from those with more experience. Finally, the study showed the value of remaining objective and composed throughout all client interactions.

Individual retirement accounts (IRAs) play an important role for U.S. retirement savings. One - third of U.S. households (over 40 million) owned at least one IRA in 2018, and the total asset value of these IRAs was approximately $9.5 trillion, or about 33% of total U.S. retirement assets. Traditional IRAs defer taxation on contributions and gains until funds are withdrawn. To prevent taxpayers from living off of other income and never taking taxable withdrawals, the required minimum distribution (RMD) rules force account holders to begin withdrawing a minimum amount each year, beginning the year after which they reach age 72 (age 70½ if born before July 1, 1949). These distributions are taxed as ordinary income.

The RMD amount varies each year and is based on the IRA account balance and the taxpayer's age. The RMD is about 3.9% of the IRA account balance at age 72 and gradually increases to about 8.8% at age 90. Taxpayers must take RMDs from each IRA account owned, as well as from certain other retirement plans (e.g., 401(k) plans). Penalties for not taking RMDs are substantial — a 50% penalty tax on the undistributed required amount, in addition to the regular income tax that is due.

While tax - deferred IRA accounts are an effective tool to incentivize taxpayers to save for retirement, policymakers must weigh this benefit against the cost of forgone government tax revenues — approximately $17.8 billion in fiscal year 2018. The RMD rules are designed, in part, to ensure the government begins collecting its tax revenues sooner rather than later. But do the RMD rules actually cause taxpayers to withdraw more than they otherwise would? It is important for policymakers to understand how the RMD rules affect taxpayers so they can adjust the rules and help incentivize the desired behavior.

Authors Jacob Mortenson, Heidi Schramm, and Andrew Whitten used administrative tax data collected by the IRS, consisting of 1.8 million IRA holders from 2000 to 2013. They found that the RMD rules are strongly binding. 2 For every age group above 70½ years, distributions are concentrated at the RMD amount. This suggests that a significant portion of taxpayers are withdrawing only the amount required to avoid the penalty and would prefer to withdraw less. Overall, the authors estimate that about 50% of individuals would prefer to withdraw less than their RMD and that this percentage increases with age. For example, the authors estimate that between 60% to 70% of the oldest taxpayers (ages 85-100) would prefer to withdraw less. The authors also found that people tend to close their IRA accounts when they turn 70½ and the RMD rules begin, especially when their account balance is small. This suggests that some IRA holders view the hassle of complying with the RMD rules as outweighing any benefits from their IRA's tax deferral.

Last, the authors examined the effects of a 2009 temporary suspension of the RMD rules, passed by Congress in response to the financial crisis and depressed asset values. Interestingly, they found that about 26% of individuals made a withdrawal in 2009 that closely approximated what their RMD would have otherwise been, even though no distribution was required, and only 35% of those who took RMDs in 2008 suspended them for 2009. The authors discuss that this possibly occurred for several reasons. Taxpayers could have been inattentive to the temporary suspension, thought it was too much trouble to change the RMD for one year, or may have believed the RMD amounts provided reasonable guidance on withdrawals. The study's results on the 2009 temporary suspension are especially informative and timely given that the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, P.L. 116 - 136 , waived taxpayer RMDs for 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

A field experiment conducted with the Colorado Department of Revenue (DOR) investigated the wording on delinquent income tax notices to see if specific variations could affect tax collections. The over - 90 ,000 households analyzed in the study owed more than $85 million in state income tax. Typically, only 34% of taxpayers receiving delinquency notices made full payment by the deadline. Researchers Taylor Cranor, Jacob Goldin, Tatiana Homonoff, and Lindsay Moore conducted the study to examine the change in compliance based on modifications to one sentence in the standard tax delinquency notice. 3

Four tax notice versions were sent randomly to delinquent taxpayers. One version provided greater details about late - payment penalties, stating the specific interest rate and highlighting that the penalty would increase for each month not paid until the "statutory maximum is reached." A second letter discussed penalties, including an incentive to make payment to avoid the interest rate doubling after 30 days. The third delinquency notice stated the interest rate effective for 30 days and included an appeal to social norms, stating that 90% of Colorado taxpayers pay their taxes on time. Finally, the control version, sent by the DOR in prior years, stated that the delinquent taxes included interest and penalties according to state law but indicated nothing specific about further penalties.

Results showed that the notice containing detailed wording about increasing penalties improved compliance by 4.1% compared with the control notice, as measured by the fraction of taxpayers creating a payment plan or making a full payment before the statutory deadline. The notice reminding taxpayers of increasing penalties that omitted specific details other than the avoidance of future interest increases improved compliance by approximately 2%. Finally, the notice appealing to social norms resulted in the same compliance rate as the control/standard notification. The compliance rates across notices were similar at low (under $95), medium ($95 to $433), or high (over $433) balances of tax due. The authors suggest that emphasizing delinquency penalties through relatively minor wording changes could result in increased collection and a reduced need for more extensive tax collection actions.

Numerous tax policies are put in place to help low - income households; however, these policies are only effective in achieving their goals if they are used as intended to benefit qualifying taxpayers. The earned income tax credit (EITC), established in 1975, is a refundable tax credit meant to subsidize low - income working families. The credit amount depends on a household's income, filing status, and number of qualifying children. The credit rises with earned income until it reaches a maximum level and then begins to phase out at higher income levels. For 2019, the maximum credit ranged from $529 for a single taxpayer with no qualifying children, to $6,557 for a married couple with three or more children. The maximum income at which married taxpayers with three or more children could claim an EITC was $55,950, although the credit is quite small ($6) at this income level. In 2016, over 27 million households claimed the EITC; about 20% of all U.S. taxpayers. However, data shows that 20% of eligible households (about 5 million) do not take advantage of the credit.

In an effort to increase taxpayer EITC claims, seven states and one city implemented a variety of laws requiring employers to inform their employees about the EITC, either through mailings, annual notifications, or posted notices in the workplace. Using IRS data from 2000-2014, authors Taylor Cranor, Jacob Goldin, and Sara Kotb examined the effectiveness of the government - mandated taxpayer notifications. 4

Results reveal that while approximately 5 million qualifying U.S. households do not take the credit, a minimal increase (0.3%) occurred in states or jurisdictions that provided notification compared with states that did not notify employees. The study suggests several reasons for the ineffectiveness, including taxpayers who do not use tax software for filing, taxpayers who do not file a return and thus are unaware of the refundable nature of the credit, a failure to read or understand the notifications, and noncompliance by employers. The authors recommend that notifications should focus on the EITC's benefits rather than laws, encourage taxpayers to use tax preparation software, and educate taxpayers about the EITC for childless taxpayers.

Evidence shows that corporate decisions on research and development (R&D), advertising, and capital expenditures are influenced by management's expectations of how their peers will behave. For example, if a firm's competitors are investing in R&D, then firm management may choose to increase or decrease R&D to a comparable level. In this instance, the firm is strategically reacting to its competitors' behavior. Authors Christopher Armstrong, Stephen Glaeser, and John Kepler examined whether strategic behavior also occurs when firms make tax planning decisions. 5 Specifically, does a firm's management adjust its own tax planning decisions in response to their competitors' tax planning decisions?

To examine whether firms exhibit strategic behavior in tax planning decisions, the authors examined two different tax settings and attempted to isolate corporations' strategic reactions to the tax planning choices of their competitors. The first setting is the reduction in corporate tax rates in Ireland, where tax rates decreased from 32% to 12.5% between 1998-2003. The second setting is the staggered adoption by different states of tax policies designed to limit interstate income shifting to Delaware, a state that does not tax income earned from intangible assets.

In both the Irish and Delaware settings, the authors found that a firm's tax planning decisions appear to be influenced by the choices of their competitors. In the Irish setting, firms not directly benefiting from the tax rate decreases made other tax planning choices that lowered their tax liabilities. This suggests that these firms strategically responded to their competitors by changing their own tax planning decisions. Conversely, firms not negatively impacted by the limits on shifting income to Delaware responded by making choices that increased their state taxes. The authors attribute these reactions to firms not wanting to appear more aggressive than their competitors, since this could bring unwanted attention from tax agencies and other stakeholders. The study also found that firms adjust their own tax planning as they learn from the tax planning decisions of their industry competitors.

Overall, the research suggests that policymakers should consider both direct and indirect effects of policy choices on firms' tax planning behavior to avoid underestimating the potential effect on a government's tax revenues.

1 Bobek, Dalton, Hageman, and Radtke, "An Experiential Investigation of Tax Professionals' Contentious Interactions With Clients," 41 - 2 The Journal of the American Taxation Association 1 (Fall 2019).

2 Mortenson, Schramm, and Whitten, "The Effects of Required Minimum Distribution Rules on Withdrawals From Traditional IRAs," 72 - 3 National Tax Journal 507 (September 2019).

3 Cranor, Goldin, Homonoff, and Moore, "Communicating Tax Penalties to Delinquent Taxpayers: Evidence From a Field Experiment," 73 - 2 National Tax Journal 331 (June 2020).

4 Cranor, Goldin, and Kotb, "Does Informing Employees About Tax Benefits Increase Take - Up ? Evidence From EITC Notification Laws," 72 - 2 National Tax Journal 397 (June 2019).

5 Armstrong, Glaeser, and Kepler, "Strategic Reactions in Corporate Tax Planning," 68 - 1 Journal of Accounting and Economics (August 2019).

Recapture considerations for Inflation Reduction Act credits

Electing the unicap historic absorption ratio under the modified simplified production method, revisiting firpta and return-of-capital distributions, partners’ basis on the liquidation of an insolvent partnership, the bba’s ‘ceases-to-exist’ rule in partnership termination transactions.

This article discusses the history of the deduction of business meal expenses and the new rules under the TCJA and the regulations and provides a framework for documenting and substantiating the deduction.

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Published by Ellie Cross at December 29th, 2022 , Revised On May 2, 2024

A thorough understanding of taxation involves drawing from multiple sources to understand its goals, strategies, techniques, standards, applications, and many types. Tax dissertations require extensive research across a variety of areas and sources to reach a conclusive result. It is important to understand and present tax dissertation themes well since they deal with technical matters.

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• Published: 16 February 2021

Factors influencing taxpayers to engage in tax evasion: evidence from Woldia City administration micro, small, and large enterprise taxpayers

• Erstu Tarko Kassa   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8199-4910 1  

Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship volume  10 , Article number:  8 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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The main purpose of this paper is to investigate factors that influence taxpayers to engage in tax evasion. The researcher used descriptive and explanatory research design and followed a quantitative research approach. To undertake this study, primary and secondary data has been utilized. From the target population of 4979, by using a stratified and simple random sampling technique, 370 respondents were selected. To verify the data quality, the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted for each variable measurements. After factor analysis has been done, the data were analyzed by using Pearson correlation and multiple regression analysis. The finding of the study revealed that the relationship between the study independent variables with the dependent variable was positive and statistically significant. The regression analysis also indicates that tax fairness, tax knowledge, and moral obligation significantly influence taxpayers to engage in tax evasion, and the remaining moral obligation and subjective norms were not statistically significant to influence taxpayers to engage in tax evasion.

Introduction

In developed and developing countries, business owners, government workers, service providers, and other organizations are forced by the government to pay a tax for a long period in human being history, and no one can escape from the tax of the country. To support this, there is an interesting statement mentioned by Benjamin Franklin “nothing is certain except death and taxes”. This statement confirmed that every citizen should be subjected to the law of tax, and they are obliged to pay the tax from their income. To build large dams, to construct transportation infrastructures, and to provide quality social services for the community, collecting a tax from citizens plays a significant role for the governments (Saxunova and Szarkova, 2018 ).

Tax is the benchmark and turning point of the country’s overall development and changing the livelihoods and enhancing per capital income of the individuals. The gross domestic product of the developed countries and average revenue ratio were 35% in the year 2005, whereas in developing countries the share was 15% and in third world countries also not more than 12% (Mughal, 2012 ).

In the developing world, countries have no system to collect a sufficient amount of tax from their taxpayers. The expected amount of revenue cannot be enhanced due to different reasons. Among the reasons tax operation of the system may not be smooth, tax evasion and lack of awareness creation for the taxpayers are common in the developing world, and citizens are not committed to paying the expected amount of tax for their countries (Fagbemi et al., 2010 ). In today’s world, this remains very much the same as persons now pay taxes to their governments. As the world has evolved, tax compliance has taken a back seat with tax avoidance and tax evasion being at the forefront of the taxpayer’s main objective. Tax avoidance is the use of legal means to reduce one’s tax liability while tax evasion is the use of illegal means to reduce that tax liability (Alleyne & Harris, 2017 ). Tax evasion is a danger to the community; the countries and international organizations have been making an effort to fight undesirable phenomena related to taxation, the tax evasion, or tax fraud (Saxunova and Szarkova, 2018 ).

Tax evasion may brings a devastating loss for the country's GDP at the micro level, and it became a debatable and a special concern for tax collector authorities (Aumeerun et al., 2016 ). The participants in tax evasion activity critized by different individuals and groups by considering the loss that brings to the country economy (Alleyne & Harris, 2017 ).

According to Dalu et al., ( 2012 ) state that in the Zimbabwe tax system there are identical devils tax evasion and tax avoidance that create a problem for the government to collect a tax from taxpayers. Like Zimbabwe, many nations have faced challenges to cover the annual budget and to construct different infrastructures due to the budget deficit created by tax evasion (Alleyne & Harris, 2017 ; Turner, 2010 ).

Scholars especially economists agreed that tax evasion may be considered a technical problem that exists in the tax collection system, whereas psychologists believed that tax evasion is a social problem for the countries (Terzić, 2017 ).

Tax evasion practices are more worsen in developing countries than when we compare against the developed countries. Tax evasion is like a pandemic for the countries because they are unable to control it. Therefore, governments were negatively affected by tax evasion to improve the life standard of its citizens and to allocate a budget for public expenditure, and it became a disease for the country’s economy and estimated to cost 20% of income tax revenue (Ameyaw et al., 2015 ; degl’Innocenti & Rablen, 2019 ; Palil et al., 2016 ).

Several factors may lead taxpayers to engage in tax evasion. Among the factors, tax knowledge, tax morale, tax system, tax fairness, compliance cost, attitudes toward the behavior, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and moral obligation are major factors (Alleyne & Harris, 2017 ; Rantelangi & Majid, 2018 ). Other factors have also a significant effect on taxpayers to engage in tax evasion practice such as capital intensity, leverage, fiscal loss, compensation, profitability, contextual tax awareness, interest rate, inflation, average tax rate, gender, and ethical tax awareness on tax evasion (Annan et al., 2014 ; AlAdham et al., 2016 ; Putra et al., 2018 ).

According to Woldia City Administration Revenue Office annual report ( 2019/2020 ) from July 1, 2019, to June 30, 2020, 232,757,512 birr was planned to be collected from taxpayers; however, the office was able to collect only 198,537,785.25 birr; however, the remaining 34,219,726.75 birr have not been collected by the office from the taxpayers. The reason behind this was there might be some factors that lead to taxpayers not to pay the annual tax from their annual income. Based on the review of the previous studies and by diagnosing the tax collection system in the city administration, the researcher identified the gaps. The first gap that motivated the researcher to undertake this study is that the prior studies did not address the factors that influence the tax collection system of Ethiopia, specifically, there is no research result that was able to show which factors influence taxpayers to engage in tax evasion in the Woldia city administration. The other gap is the previous study focused on the demographic, economic, social, and other factors. However, this study mainly focused on the behavioral and other factors that lead taxpayers to engage in tax evasion.

To indicate the benefit of this study, the study specifies on which critical factors the authority will focus on to enhance annual revenue and to aware tax payers of the devastating impact of tax evasion. Moreover, the paper may bring new insights on tax evasion influential non-economic factors that the researchers may give more emphasis on the upcoming researches. This paper will also contribute innovative ways to know the reasons why tax payers engage in tax evasion and inform the authority at which factors they will struggle to reduce their influence and to enhance revenue. The study can be an evidence that the tax authority should launch innovative techniques to control tax evasion practices. Moreover, applying fair tax system in the collectors’ side, the enterprises become innovative and will expand their business.

To sum up, in this study, the researcher examined which factor (tax knowledge, tax fairness, subjective norms, moral obligation, and attitude towards the behavior) influences taxpayers to engage in tax evasion activities. Based on the above discussion, the objective of the study is to examine factors that influence taxpayers to engage in tax evasion in Woldia city administration.

Literature review

Tax and tax evasion.

Tax is charged by the government to the business, governmental organization, and individual without any return forwarded from the authority. Tax can be categorized as direct tax which is collected from the profit of the companies and the incomes of individuals, and the other category of tax is an indirect tax collected from consumers’ payment (James and Nobes, 1999 ).

Tax evasion is a word explaining individuals, groups, and companies rejecting the expected amount of payment for the authority. It is a criminal offense on the view of law (Nangih & Dick, 2018 ). The overall procedure of tax collection faced different challenges especially tax evasion the most important one. Tax evasion is done intentionally by taxpayers by avoiding and hiding different documents that become evidence for the tax collection authorities. It is simply an illegal act to pay the true amount of the tax (Aumeerun et al., 2016 ; Storm, 2013 ). Tax evasion is a crime that is able to distort the overall economic, political, and social system of the country. The economic aspect of tax evasion affects fair distribution of wealth for the citizens. The social aspect also creates different social groups motivated by tax evasion discouraged by these individuals due to unfair competition (AlAdham et al., 2016 ). Tax evasion is a mal-activity that reduces the amount of tax paid by the payers. Perhaps the taxpayers who engaged in evasion activity may be supported by the legislative of the country (Kim, 2008 ; Putra et al., 2018 ; Allingham & Sandmo, 1972 ). According to Al Baaj et al. ( 2018 ) argument, there are two types of tax evasions. The first one is the legal evasion or tax avoidance which is supported by the legislation of the countries and the right is given for the taxpayer, but it is not constitutional (Gallemore & Labro, 2015 ; Zucman, 2014 ).

Theoretical reviews on factors affecting tax evasion

The illegal activity done by taxpayers has many determinants that lead them to engage in tax evasion. Among the factors that trigger taxpayers who participate in this activity are the economic factors. Under the economic factors, business sanctions, business stagnation, and the amount of tax burden are considered as influential factors. On the other hand, legal factors, social factors, demographic factors, mental factors, and moral factors are the most important factors (Saxunova and Szarkova, 2018 ). Many factors determine the taxpayers’ interest to engage in tax evasion. Among the factors, the following are considered under this review.

The factors that able to influence taxpayers to engage in tax evasion are moral obligation . It is a principle and a duty of taxpayers by paying a reasonable amount of tax for the tax authorities without the enforcement of others. It is an intrinsic motivation of payers paying the tax (Sadjiarto et al., 2020 ). When taxpayers have low tax morals, they will become negligent to pay their allotted tax, and they will engage in tax evasion (Alm & Torgler, 2006 ; Frey & Oberholzer-Gee, 1997 ; Torgler et al., 2008 ). According to Feld and Frey ( 2007 ), when tax officials are responsible and provide respect in their duties toward taxpayers, tax morale or the honesty of taxpayers will increase. Tax morals may be affected by a demographic and another factor like income level, marital status, and religion (Rantelangi & Majid, 2018 ). It is the determinant behavior of tax payers whether they participate or not. Tax morals can affect positively taxpayers to engage in tax evasion (Nangih & Dick, 2018 ; Terzić, 2017 ). It is known that taxes levied by the concerned authority are ethical. As cited by Ozili ( 2020 ), McGee ( 2006 ) argues that there are three basic views on the ethics and moral of tax evasion. The first view is tax evasion is unethical and should not be practice by any payer, the second argument deals that the state is illegal and has no moral authority to take anything from anyone, and the last argument is tax evasion can be ethical under some conditions and unethical under other situations; therefore, the decision to evade tax is an ethical dilemma which considers several factors (Robert, 2012 ). Therefore, the discussion leads to the following hypothesis:

H 1 . Moral obligation has a negative influence on taxpayers to engage in tax evasion.

The other factor that influences taxpayers to engage in tax evasion is tax fairness . Tax fairness is a non-economic factor that determines the tax collection of the country (Alkhatib et al., 2019 ). It is known that the tax collection procedures, principles, and implementation must be fair. Unethical behavior may happen due to the unfairness of the tax collection process. The fairness of tax may influence payers positively to pay the tax. When the tax rate is not reasonable and fair, the payers will regret to engage in the tax evasion practices and they will inform authorities their annual income without denying the exact amount. Considering the ability of paying or acceptable tax rates helps to maintain the fairness of the taxation system (Rantelangi & Majid, 2018 ). The governments choose to levy in what amounts and on whom will pay a high tax rate (Thu, 2017 ). The tax rate is a factor that induces taxpayers to pay less amount from their income. The rate of tax should be fair and reasonable for the payers (Ozili, 2020 ). As cited by Gandhi et al. ( 1995 ) the Allingham and Sandmo’s model, Allingham and Sandmo ( 1972 ) shows that the tax rate on payment can be positive, zero, or negative, which implies that an increase in the tax rate may cause the tax payment to increase, remain the same, or decrease. The theoretical literature could not evidence the claim that an increase in the tax rate will lead to an increase in tax evasion (Gandhi et al., 1995 ). The fairness of tax is controversial and argumentative because there may not happen a similar amount of tax for all payers (Abera, 2019 ). Thus, based on this ground the study hypothesis would be:

H 2 . Tax fairness has a positive influence on taxpayers to engage in tax evasion.

Tax knowledge is vital for taxpayers to know the cause and effect brought to them to engage in tax evasion. If tax payers are well informed about tax evasion, their participation in tax evasion would be infrequent; the reverse is true for a taxpayer who is not well informed. Tax-related information should give more emphasis to enhance the knowledge of taxpayers and experts of the authority (Poudel, 2017 ). Tax knowledge is a means to enhance the revenue of the country from the side of tax payers (Sadjiarto et al., 2020 ). If the authorities cascade different training for taxpayers about tax evasion and other tax-related issues, taxpayers become reluctant to engage in tax evasion (Rantelangi & Majid, 2018 ). Tax knowledge is a determinant factor for the taxpayer to engage and retain from the tax evasion activities (Abera, 2019 ). When taxpayers are undertaking their routine tasks without tax knowledge, they may involve in certain risks that expose them to engage in tax evasion (Thu, 2017 ). Thus, the discussion leads to the following hypothesis:

H 3 . Tax knowledge has a negative influence on taxpayers engaged in tax evasion.

The stakeholders, government experts, families, individuals, groups, and peers influence taxpayers whether they engaged in tax evasion or not (Alleyne & Harris, 2017 ). As cited by Alkhatib et al. ( 2019 ), the influence of peer groups on tax taxpayers is high, thus affecting the taxpayers’ preferences, personal values, and behaviors to engage in tax evasion (Puspitasari & Meiranto, 2014 ). The stakeholders around the taxpayers might be motivators to push taxpayers in the criminal act of tax evasion. This act called subjective norms meant that the payers are influenced by peers and other stakeholders. When the tax payer is reluctant to pay a tax for the authority, his/her friends are more likely to hide tax. As cited by Abera ( 2019 ), there is a strong relationship between social norms and subjective norms with tax evasion and affects the small business taxpayers (Nabaweesi, 2009 ). The above discussion can support the following hypothesis of the study:

H 4 . Subjective norms have a positive influence on taxpayers to engage in tax evasion.

The other factor that influences taxpayers to engage in tax evasion is an attitude towards the behavior of taxpayers. Attitude is a means of evaluating the activities whether they are positive or negative of any object. Many studies have been done by different scholars by defining and identifying the relationship between the attitudes of taxpayers with tax evasion (Alleyne & Harris, 2017 ). If the attitude of taxpayers towards taxation is negative, they will be reluctant to pay their obligation to the authority; the reverse is true when taxpayers have positive attitudes towards taxation (Abera, 2019 ). Based on the above discussion, the hypothesis of the study would be as follows:

H 5 . Tax payers’ attitude towards the behavior has a positive influence on taxpayers to engage in tax evasion.

Conceptual framework of the study

The researcher identified the variables and presented the relationship between independent and dependent variables as follows (Fig. 1 ):

Conceptual framework of the study. Adapted from Alleyne and Harris ( 2017 ) and Rantelangi and Majid ( 2018 )

Materials and methods

The researcher applied descriptive and explanatory research design to carry out this study. The explanatory research design enables the researcher to show the cause and effect relationship between independent and dependent variables, and the descriptive research also helps to describe the event as it is. The quantitative approach has been followed by the researcher to analyze and interpret the numerical data collected from the respondents. The researcher used primary and secondary data. The primary data was collected from the respondents by using questionnaires, and the secondary data was also collected from the reports, websites, and other sources.

The target population of the study was 4979 taxpayers (micro, small, and large enterprises). From the total taxpayers, 377 are categorized under level “A,” 207 are under level “B,” and the remaining 4395 taxpayers are categorized under level “C”. From the target population by using a stratified sampling technique, the respondents have been selected. The target population has been divided by the level of taxpayers; after dividing the population by level, the researcher applied a simple random sampling technique to select respondents. To identify the target participants or sample size in this study, the researcher used Yamane’s ( 1967 ) formula. Hence, the formula is described as follows:

where N = target population, n = sample size, e = error term

Based on the sample size, the respondents have participated proportionally as follows from each level. The total population was divided by strata based on the level categorized by the authorities. By using a simple random sampling technique, 28 respondents were from level “A,” 15 respondents from level “B,” and 327 respondents from level “C” have participated.

Regarding data collection instruments , the data was collected by self-administered standardized questionnaires. The variable of the study a moral obligation was measured by 4 items; after conducting factor analysis, the fourth variable or questionnaire has been removed and after that correlation and regression analysis has been done for 3 items; the value of Cronbach’s alpha was .711; the other factor attitude towards the behavior was measured by 4 items with a value of .804 Cronbach’s alpha; the third variable subjective norms was also measured by 4 items; the value of Cronbach’s Alpha was .887, and tax evasion was measured by 5 items; the Cronbach’s alpha value was .868. For the above-listed variables, the questionnaires were adapted from Alleyne and Harris ( 2017 ), and the remaining variable tax fairness was measured by 7 items, the Cronbach’s alpha value was .905, the items were adapted from Benk et al. ( 2012 ), and the last variable tax knowledge was measured by 5 items. However, after conducting factor analysis, the fifth item has been removed due to low value of the variable. After the removal of the fifth item, the Cronbach’s alpha value for the remaining items was .800, the items were adapted from Poudel ( 2017 ). For all variables, the researcher has used a five-point Likert scale from strongly agree to strongly disagree.

To analyze the collected data, the researcher used descriptive statistics analysis, factor analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis to know the result of variables by using SPSS Version 22. Moreover, the model of the study is described as follows:

where Y = tax evasion, X 1 = moral obligation, X 2 = tax fairness, X 3 = tax knowledge, X 4 = subjective norms, and X 5 = attitude towards the behavior, β = beta coefficient, B 0 = constant, e = other factors not included in the study (0.05 random error).

Results and discussion

Level of respondents.

As indicated in Table 1 from the total respondents, 88.4% are categorized under level “C,” 4.1% are leveled under “B,” and the remaining 7.6% of respondents have been categorized under level “A”.

Factor analysis of the study variables

To undertake exploratory factor analysis, the data should fulfill the following assumptions. The first assumption is the variables should be ratio, interval, and ordinal; the second one is within the variables there should be linear associations; the third assumption is a simple size should range from 100 to 500; and the last assumption is the data without outliers. Thus, this study data have been checked by the researcher whether the data meets the assumption or not. After checking the assumptions, factor analysis was conducted as follows.

KMO and Bartlett’s test

Conducting KMO and Bartlett’s test is a precondition to conduct the factor analysis of the study measuring variables. KMO measures the adequacy of the sample of the study. In the result reported in Table 2 , the value was 0.883 and enough for the factor analysis. Related with Bartlett test as shown in Table 2 , the value is 5727.623 ( p < 0.001), which reveals the adequacy of data using factor analysis.

As shown in Table 3 , factors were extracted from study data; there was a linear relationship between variables. From the table, we can understand that 6 variables have more than one eigenvalue. The first factor scored the value 31.782 of the variance, the second value is 11.739 of the variance, the third factor scored 8.246 of the variance, the fourth factor accounts for 6.725 of the variance, the fifth factor also accounts for 5.233, and the last factor scored 4.123 of the variance. All six factors were explained cumulatively by 67.85% of the variance.

As shown in the Fig. 2 , the scree plot starts to turn down slowly at the low eigenvalue which is less than 1. The six factors eigenvalue is greater than one.

Scree plot. Source: own survey (2020)

The pattern matrix is shown in Table 4 which is able to show the loading of each variable and the relationship of variables in the study. The highest value among the factors measured the variable considerably. The cutoff point of loading was set at .35 and above. Based on the loading cutoff point except two factors, all are significant and analyzed under this study. From the six variables (five independent and one dependent) incorporated under this study, the identified factors show that how significantly enough to measure the situation. These factors have scored greater than 1 eigenvalue and able to explain 67.85% of the variance. In general, the detail variables and their factor are described as follows:

The first component tax fairness has 7 factors; the eigenvalue is 8.58 and able to explain 31.78 of the total variance. In this component, the highest contributed factor was item TF3 (weight = .925), TF5 (weight = .865), TF1 (weight = .859), TF2 (weight = .778), TF4 (.668), TF6 (weight = .614), and TF7 (weight = .568). The second component was tax evasion and has 5 items; the eigenvalue is 3.17 and explaining 11.73 of the variance. The factor weight of the items, TE4 (factor weight = .860), TE5 (factor weight = .810), TE3 (factor weight = .730), TE2 (factor weight = .650), and the last one is TE1 (factor weight = .606). The third component was subjective norms; it has 4 factors the weight of each factor described as follows. The first item SNS1 weight = .898, SNS2 factor weight = .887, SNS4 factor weight = .846, and SNS3 factor weight = .820. Moreover, the eigenvalue of this component is 2.226 and explained 8.246 of the variance of the study. The fourth component is an attitude towards the behavior. This variable has four factors that have 1.816 eigenvalue and explained 6.725 of the total variance. Among the items, ATB2 factor weight = .863, ATB1 factor weight = .792, ATB3 factor weight = .791 and the last factor is ATB4 factor weight = .500. The fifth component of the study is tax knowledge; at the very beginning of this variable, the researcher adapted five items. However, one item (TK5) was not significant and removed from this analysis. In this component, the highest value was scored by TK3 (factor weight = .866), the second highest TK2 (factor weight = .801), the third highest factor weight (weight = .700), and the last factor is TK4 (weight = .690). The eigenvalue of this component was 1.413 and explained 5.233% of the variance. The last component is a moral obligation; like tax knowledge, the researcher adapted for this variable 4 items, though, one item (MO4) was not significant and removed from the items list. The eigenvalue of this component was 1.113 and explained 4.123 of the variance. From the items, MO1 scored the highest factor weight of .891, the second highest weight in this component was MO3 with a factor weight of .854, and the third highest factor weight was scored by MO3 with a value of .508.

Association analysis of the study variables

To analyze the correlation between variables as shown in the Table 5 , the relation between subjective norms with taxpayers engaged in tax evasion is r = 0.240 ( p < 0.05); this indicates that there is a statistically significant relationship between the two variables. The relationship between ATB with TE, MO with TE, TK with TE, and TF with TE, the Pearson correlation result is r = 0.318 ( p < 0.05), r = 0.371 ( p < 0.05), .446, and r = 0.691 ( p < 0.05) respectively and statistically significant. It implies that the independent variables have a positive relationship with the dependent variable of the study with a statistically significant level of p < 0.05 and n = 370.

Effect analysis of the study variables

As shown in Table 6 , the study independent variables (SNS, ATB, MO, TK, and TF) explained the study dependent variable (TE) by 54.9%. This result indicates that there are other variables that explain the dependent variable by 45.1% which has not been investigated under this study.

Hypothesis test

The proposed hypothesis of the study has been tested based on the coefficient of regression and the “ p ” value of the study variables. The detail result is described as follows:

As shown in Table 7 , moral obligation influences positively the taxpayers to engage in tax evasion activities with a beta value of .177 and p < .05. This result entails that the taxpayers are influenced by other stakeholders to engage in tax evasion, and they have low moral value to pay the tax levied by the government. This result is supported by the finding of Alleyne and Harris ( 2017 ), Rantelangi and Majid ( 2018 ), and Sadjiarto et al. ( 2020 ). Thus, the hypothesis related to this variable has been rejected because moral obligation influences positively taxpayers to engage in tax evasion.

H 2 . Tax fairness has a positive influence on taxpayers to engage in tax evasion

To minimize the participation of taxpayers engaged in tax evasion, tax fairness plays a significant role. The regression result indicates in Table 7 that tax fairness positively influences the taxpayers to engage in tax evasion. This result is similar to the finding of Majid et al., ( 2017 ) and contradicts with the finding of Rantelangi and Majid ( 2018 ) and Alkhatib et al. ( 2019 ). Accordingly, the proposed hypothesis has been accepted because the beta value is .563 and the p value is less than .05.

H 3 . Tax knowledge has a negative influence on taxpayers to engage in tax evasion

Table 7 shows that tax knowledge influences the taxpayers positively to engaged in tax evasion. The beta value is .183 and the value is p = 0.00. It is known that when the taxpayers were not well informed about the importance of tax for the country development and the devastating issues of tax evasion, they will be forced to engage in tax evasion. This finding contradicts the finding of Rantelangi and Majid ( 2018 ) and is supported by the finding of AlAdham et al. ( 2016 ). To conclude, the proposed hypothesis rejected because tax knowledge positively influenced the taxpayers to engage in tax evasion.

H 4 . Subjective norms have a positive influence on taxpayers engaged in tax evasion

Table 7 indicates that subjective norms have not been significantly influenced positively by the taxpayers engaged in tax evasion, which means taxpayers were not influenced by others to participate in tax evasion activities. This result is consistent with the finding of Alleyne and Harris ( 2017 ). Thus, the proposed hypothesis is rejected because the variable of subjective norms was not statistically significant with a p value of .099.

H 5 . Tax payers’ attitude towards the behavior has a positive influence on taxpayers to engage in tax evasion

As indicated in Table 7 , attitudes toward the behavior were not significantly influencing the taxpayers to participate in tax evasion with the p value of .985. However, according to the study conducted by Alleyne and Harris ( 2017 ), attitude toward the behavior significantly predicts the intentions of taxpayers to engage in tax evasion. This finding contradicts with this study result. To conclude, the proposed hypothesis has been rejected because the variable is not statistically significantly influencing the taxpayers to engage in tax evasion activities.

According to Table 7 through the examination of coefficients, moral obligation had a positive effect on tax evasion having a coefficient of .197. This means that a 1% change in moral obligation keeping the other things remain constant can result to motivate taxpayers to engage in tax evasion by 19.7% in the same direction. This finding is similar to the result of Alleyne and Harris ( 2017 ), Nangih and Dick ( 2018 ), Rantelangi and Majid ( 2018 ), and Sadjiarto et al. ( 2020 ). Tax knowledge had a positive effect on tax evasion having a coefficient of .174. This indicates that a 1% change in tax knowledge keeping the other things constant can result in a change in taxpayers to engage in tax evasion by 17.4% in the same direction. This finding contradicts the finding of Rantelangi and Majid ( 2018 ) and is similar to the finding of AlAdham et al. ( 2016 ) and Thu ( 2017 ). Tax fairness also had a positive effect on tax evasion having a coefficient of .468. This implies that a 1% change in tax fairness keeping the other things remain constant can result in a change in taxpayers engage in tax evasion by .468% in the same direction. This result is similar to the finding of Majid et al. ( 2017 ) and contradicts the finding of Alkhatib et al. ( 2019 ) and Rantelangi and Majid ( 2018 ). Thus, the final model of the study would be:

Tax evasion = .623 + .197MO + .174TK + .468TF

To generalize, the standardized beta coefficient indicates that tax fairness highly affects taxpayers to engage in tax evasion by 56.3%, tax knowledge affects secondly taxpayers to engage in tax evasion by 18.3%, and moral obligation affects taxpayers to engage in tax evasion by 17.7%. The remaining variables subjective norms and attitude towards the behavior were not statistically significant.

Conclusion and recommendations

Every citizen of the country was subjected to pay the tax of the country levied by the authority that administered the revenue. However, the taxpayer may be reluctant to pay a tax based on their revenue. There are push factors that instigate payers to engage in tax evasion. Sometimes the payers may be convinced themselves that being engaged in tax evasion is ethical, others may consider it unethical. They may argue “I Do Not Receive Benefits, Therefore I Do Not Have to Pay” (Robert, 2012 ). This study tried to examine the factors that influence taxpayers to engage in tax evasion by identifying five factors namely moral obligation , tax fairness , tax knowledge , subjective norms , and taxpayers’ attitude towards the behavior . The study findings based on the result analysis described as follows.

The correlation analysis of the study shows that there was a positive and statistically significant relationship between independent variables with the dependent variable (tax evasion). The regression result, on the other hand, revealed that tax knowledge affects taxpayers to participate in tax evasion activities with a statistically significant level. This finding can be evidence that the knowledge of the taxpayers regarding the importance of tax is limited. Because according to the regression result, they engaged in the tax evasion activities in the study area. The other factor that affects taxpayers to engage in tax evasion is tax fairness. The regression result of tax fairness supported that taxpayers have been affected by the fairness of the tax system in the study area to participate in tax evasion. The finding confirms that the tax charged by the government is not fair for payers. Thus, we can conclude that due to the absence of tax fairness taxpayers are engaged in tax evasion in the city administration. The other variable moral obligation regression result confirms that moral obligation affects positively taxpayers to engage in tax evasion. This is signal that taxpayers did not know the moral value of retaining from tax evasion that is why the moral obligation results in positive and statistical significance. Generally, tax fairness highly affects taxpayers to evade taxes, tax knowledge affects secondly, and moral obligation affected tax payers thirdly to evade tax in the city administration.

Based on the findings, the following recommendations have been forwarded by the researcher. The first one is creating a fair tax payment system, or charging fair tax for the payers helps to reduce the participation of payers in tax evasion. The second recommendation is cascading different training related to tax will help taxpayers to pay a tax based on their annual income. The last recommendation is related to tax moral or moral obligation. The moral is an abounding rule for human beings to know the right and wrong activities. The authority is better to strive to recognize the payers about the moral obligations of the payers and better to inform to the payers to think about the shattering effect of tax evasion for the country development and city as well.

Further future lines of research will attempt to:

Investigate the employees’ side of tax authority and the perception of the community towards tax evasion.

Explore other influencing factors that affect tax payers to engage in tax evasion which are not incorporated under this study.

Conducting a comparative study on one city, region, and country with others.

Suggestion for future study

This study addresses only one city administration in Amhara region; other researchers are better to undertake the study on one more cities.

Availability of data and materials

All data are included in the manuscript and available on hand too.

Abbreviations

Attitude towards the behavior

• Moral obligation

Micro and small enterprises

Subjective norms

• Tax evasion
• Tax fairness
• Tax knowledge

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Kassa, E.T. Factors influencing taxpayers to engage in tax evasion: evidence from Woldia City administration micro, small, and large enterprise taxpayers. J Innov Entrep 10 , 8 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13731-020-00142-4

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Tax structure and economic growth: a study of selected Indian states

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The present study examines the long-run and short-run relationship between tax structure and state-level growth performance in India for the period 1991–2016. The analysis in this paper is based on the model of Acosta-Ormaechea and Yoo ( 2012 ), and for the verification of the relationship between taxation and economic growth the panel regression method is used. With the use of 14 Indian states data, Panel Pool mean group estimation indicates that income tax and commodity–service tax have negative effects whilst property and capital transaction tax have a significant positive effect on state economic growth. This study finds ‘U’ shape relationship between tax structure and growth performance. Based on the analysis, we conclude that for faster growth of Indian states, policymakers should give more focus on property taxes along with the reduction in income taxes.

1 Introduction

The study on the potential association between tax structure and growth performance has gathered a great deal of attention from policymakers, academicians and regulatory circles for several reasons. First, the developing and emerging economies require a large volume of tax revenues for the smooth and efficient functioning of the state at both the national and sub-national levels. Globalization has laid down the foundation for Goods and Service Tax (GST) in many developing countries (Mcnabb 2018 ). Due to competition, developing countries are also facing the difficulties to maintain existing tax revenues (Bird and Zolt 2011 ). Second, tax collection and structure of it create distortionary impacts in the economy through tax burden. Thus, the positive and negative impact of tax made the ‘tax–growth’ relationship more complex and the structure of taxation has a definite role in the development process of an economy.

In a budget constraint economy like India, investigation of tax–growth relationship enables us to formulate the suitable policy measure for the more inclusive and equitable growth process. The budget crisis is usually resolved through the cut-down of public spending or/and an increase in tax revenues (Macek 2014 ). Rapid reduction in spending or increase in taxes is harmful to long-run growth performance. Thus, the concern of the government lies with the problem of fiscal consolidation with sustainable growth performance where tax policies are vital.

Empirical evidence on the impact of tax structure on growth performance is not conclusive. India has adopted the Goods and Service Tax (GST) policy in 2017 intending to raise indirect tax collections and transform the indirect tax structure into a single market to avoid tax evasions and double taxation. GST is regarded as one of the major tax policy changes in independent India and economists are an optimist about its impact on revenue generations and growth performance. But this policy is not the only policy that shaped in independent India; other major policy changes also take place after independence. Footnote 1 Tax Reform Committee (TRC) report of 1991 regarded one of the productive and structured policy recommendations in the recent decade. At the state level, sales tax reform in the form of Value Added Tax (VAT) in 2005 becomes a fruitful policy initiative. However, the tax collections in both national and sub-national level are still low as compared to the international standards. Changes in tax policy also change in the tax structure in the economy and India witnessed these changes at both levels of governments. Recent studies proved that the changes in tax structure have decisive implication in the growth performance through work–leisure behaviour, investment decisions and overall productivity (Arnold et al. 2011 ; Gemmell et al. 2011 ; Macek 2014 ; Mdanat et al. 2018 ; Durusu-Ciftci 2018 ). In India, very few empirical studies are available which analyse the impact of these changes in tax structure on growth performance and this study will be first to investigate tax–growth nexus in India with the use of state-level data.

This analysis primarily concerned with tax structure rather than to tax levels (usually measured as a tax–GDP ratio). The main advantage of tax structure analysis is that it provides revenue-neutral tax policy changes which remove the difficulties related with the question of how aggregate tax revenue changes relates with expenditure changes (Arnold et al. 2011 ). The empirical results from linear panel regression suggest us that property and capital transection tax are positively affecting the state’s growth performance, where commodity and service tax effect negatively. However, the non-linear panel regression indicates that the positive effect is only visible for property taxes at a higher level where the negative effect of commodity and service taxes becomes positive after a threshold point. The effect of income tax is not significant in long run irrespective of panel regression models.

The structure of the paper is as follows: Sect.  2 deals with the theoretical framework and empirical literature, followed by a brief description of data and methodology in Sect.  3 . Empirical results and discussion are presented in Sect.  4 and our last Sect.  5 is for conclusions and recommendations.

2 Theoretical framework and empirical literature

Growth literature very recently acknowledges the role of taxation in the growth process of an economy. Until recently, growth models are more concerned with the steady-state process and exogenous changes. On the theoretical ground, taxation does not have any impact on growth (Myles 2000 ). Development of endogenous growth models creates the space for fiscal policy especially tax policy in determining the growth performance. Barro ( 1990 ), King and Rebello ( 1990 ) and Jones et al. ( 1993 ) were the pioneer in this regard. Tax level and tax structure have an impact on the saving behaviour of the household and investment in human capital. On the other hand, the firm also changes its investment decisions and innovations following tax policies (Johansson et al. 2008 ). These decisions and incentives in the accumulation of physical and human capital create the ‘Growth’ disparities amongst the countries and state economies.

A large body of literature available on “Tax-Growth” relationship is mostly dedicated to cross-country settings (Martin and Fardmanesh 1990 ; Karras 1999 ; Myles 2000 ; Tosun and Abizadeh 2005 ; Johansson et al. 2008 ; Vartia et al. 2008 ; Arnold 2011 ; Szarowska 2013; Macek 2014 ; Stoilova 2017 ; Safi et al. 2017 ; Durusu-Ciftci 2018 ) that investigates the effect of tax policy on economic performance. Income and corporation taxes are the major tax instruments for the governments irrespective of the level of developments of a country. The formation of tax structure with these two taxes has many implications in the growth performance. The study made by Arnold et al. ( 2011 ), Macek ( 2014 ) and Dackehag and Hansson ( 2012 ) has explored the negative relation of income and corporation tax with growth performance. Vartia et al. ( 2008 ) find the negative impact of corporation tax for OECD countries. If we consider the average and marginal tax rate, marginal tax is very influential than to average tax rate in investment decisions and labour supply. Empirical studies prove that marginal tax has a negative relation with growth, which indicate raising of marginal tax rate is associated with compromises with growth performance (Padovano and Galli 2001 ; Lee and Gordon 2005 ; Poulson and Kaplani 2008 ). Studies also established that other type of taxes also has a significant impact on growth performance, like consumption tax (Johansson et al. 2008 ; Durusu-Ciftci 2018 ), GST and Payroll (Tosun and Abizadeh 2005 ), property tax (Xing 2011 ), labour tax (Szarowska 2014 ), sales tax (Ojede and Yamarik 2012 ), excise (Reynolds 2006 ), etc.

However, looking at the single country’s perspective, we find very little evidence on the same. Stockey and Rebelo ( 1995 ) with the use of the endogenous growth model study the role of tax reforms on U.S. growth performance. They have found that tax reforms have very minor implication with economic outcomes. There are several studies exist for US economy where they empirically try to establish the link between tax and growth. Atems ( 2015 ) finds the spatial spillover effect of income taxes on the growth of 48 contiguous states. On the other hand, Ojede and Yamarik ( 2012 ) have not found any kind of impact of income taxes on growth in these states. Their panel pool mean group estimation indicates that property and sales tax has detrimental consequences in development. With the use of data for the U.S. covering the period of 1912–2006, Barro and Redlick ( 2009 ) find that average marginal income taxes were halting the economic growth. However, they have provided an interesting argument that in wartime, the tax does not have any kind of relation with growth. In search of an answer to the question that whether corporate tax rise destroys jobs in the U.S., Ljungqvist and Smolyansky ( 2016 ) use firm-level data for the period 1970–2010. The main conclusion of the paper is that a rise in corporate tax is not good for employment and income and has very little impact on economic activity. Using the error correction model, Mdanat et al. ( 2018 ) find for Jordan that income tax, corporation tax and personal tax negatively impact the growth. They suggest that irrespective of tax collection, the prime focus of the government should be social justice of the people. Dladla and Khobai ( 2018 ) also find similar results for South Africa where income taxes are coming out to be negative. For the case of Italy, Federici and Parisi ( 2015 ) used the 880 firms’ data and results show that corporation tax is bad for investments with the consideration of both effective average and marginal taxes rates.

Looking at the literature, the empirical relationship of tax structure with growth performance is still unclear for India. This study attempts to fill the gap by examining the effect of tax policy on economic performance in an emerging economy such as India at the state level. Second, with the use of panel Pool Mean Group (PMG) estimator which assumes slope homogeneity in the long run and heterogeneity in the short run, we can incorporate the dynamic behaviour of the variables which will be new to tax structure–growth study in India. Third, the tax–growth nexus may show a non-linear relationship due to the threshold effect. We consider this non-linearity in our panel regression model which will be a contribution to the existing literature.

3 Data and methodology

To study the effect of tax policy on economic performance in India, we employed three models and included each tax instruments in the models separately to avoid the problem of Multicollinearity. Following the works of Arnold et al. ( 2011 ) and Acosta-Ormaechea and Yoo ( 2012 ), the tax structure is measured by the share of individual tax to the total state tax revenues. We investigate the tax–growth relationship with the following equation.

Here, Y it is the growth rate of Per capita net state domestic product (NSDP), SGI is the state gross investment as a percentage of state domestic product, TAX is one of the tax shares (Property, Commodity & Services and Income), Tax Burden Footnote 2 is the ratio of total tax revenues to state domestic product and ϵ is the error term. Per the work of Acosta-Ormaechea and Yoo ( 2012 ), this study is more concerned with the impact of tax structure on growth rate rather than level effect. In model 1, we include property tax share, and in model 2 and model 3, we incorporate commodity & service tax and income tax, respectively. By following the approach of Arnold et al. ( 2011 ), we include total tax burden as a control variable which will reduce the biases that may occur from correlation in between tax mix and tax burden. We also included Secondary Enrollment Rate as a proxy variable for human capital in our model, but the inconsistent and insignificant results make us drop the variable from the final estimation model.

In search of a possible non-linear relationship, we introduce a separate panel regression by introducing the square of each tax share into the models.

If the coefficient of α 3 significant and carries an opposite sign to α 2 , then we can conclude that there is a non-linear relationship exist.

In this study, we included 14 Indian states for the period 1991 to 2016 and excluded North-Eastern states due to their relatively small tax revenue collections. Data have been taken from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) and Handbook of Statistics on the Indian States, published by Reserve Bank of India. The states that are included in this study are Andhra Pradesh (undivided), Footnote 3 Assam, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Orissa, Rajasthan and West Bengal. All the states are included in model 1 and model 2. For model 3, due to the data availability, we include only seven states Footnote 4 namely Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, and West Bengal.

The selection of the study period is primarily driven by the argument provided by Rao and Rao ( 2006 ) that after the market-oriented economic reform of 1991, more systematic and long-term goal-oriented tax reforms were initiated in state level for India. The economic reform also brings rapid growth in India and it becomes very interesting to look at the tax–growth nexus after the economic reform. The second restriction related to the use of long data span is the availability of data for each tax head for each of the states under this study.

3.1 Unit root

Pool Mean Group (PMG) specification is very fruitful and widely used model to capture the dynamic behaviour of policy variables. This model is very powerful as it can investigate both I (0) and I (1) variables in a single autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) model setup. A necessary condition in the ARDL model is that the model cannot deal with the I(2) variables. Thus, the investigation of stationarity becomes a compulsion. We used popular panel unit root tests like LLC (Levin et al. 2002 ), the IPS (Im et al. 2003 ), the ADF-Fisher Chi square (Maddala and Wu 1999 ) and PP-Fisher Chi square (Choi 2001 ) in this study.

3.2 Panel PMG model

The Mean Group (MG) estimator was developed by Pesaran and Smith ( 1995 ) to solve the issue of bias related to heterogeneous slopes in dynamic panels. Traditional panel models like instrumental variables’ estimator of Anderson and Hsiao ( 1981 , 1982 ) and Arellano and Bond ( 1991 ) may produce inconsistent results in a dynamic panel framework (Pesaran et al. 1999 ). MG estimator takes the average value of every cross-section and provides the long-run estimate for ARDL or PMG. On the other hand, Pooled Mean Group (PMG) estimator developed by Pesaran et al. ( 1999 ) assumes slope homogeneity in the long run but heterogeneous slopes in the short run for cross-section units. Dynamic Fixed Effect (DFE) also works like PMG and restricts cointegrating vector to be equal across all panels and restricts the speed of adjustment to be equal.

Under these assumptions, PMG is more efficient estimator than to MG and DFE estimator. The prime requirement for PMG estimator is that T should be sufficiently large to N. Panel ARDL or PMG works through maximum likelihood. Our basic PMG begins with the following equation.

Here, x it is the vector explanatory variables and y i is the lag dependent variable. X it allows the inclusion of both I (0) and I (1) variables. State fixed effect is captured through μ i . Above equation can be re-parameterized to ARDL format.

ɸ i measures the state-specific speed of adjustment and known as Error Correction Term. Β i is the vector of long-run relationships and α ij and θ ij are the vectors of short-run dynamic relationships. Pesaran et al. ( 1999 ) did not provide any statistical test for checking long-run relationship but it can be concluded form sign and magnitude of Error Correction Term (ECT). If it is negative and less than − 2, a long-run relationship can be established.

4 Results and discussion

Panel unit root test results from Table 1 suggest that in the case of Model 1 & 2, the Growth rate of Per Capita Net State Domestic Product (PC-NSDP), Property tax and commodity taxes are stationary at level. Gross investment and total tax revenue share to GDP are stationary at the 1st difference in all models and income tax share is also stationary at the same order.

5 PMG model results

We have reported MG, PMG and DFE estimation in the Tables  2 and 3 . The Hausman test indicates that the PMG model is the best model for our data than to MG model. Negative and significant error correction terms in all the models show the long-run relationship in between variable. One major issue related to the tax–growth equation is the problem of endogeneity of the variables. As growth in per capita GDP is our dependent variables, there is a possibility that tax collections behave along with business cycles. Therefore, we tested the weak/strong exogeneity of the tax variables through the correlation analysis between business cycles and tax shares. Business cycles have been calculated using the Hodrick-Prescott (HP) Filter. We have found that all the tax instruments are very weakly related to the business cycles movement and thus, we conclude that variables are not truly endogenous.

The speed of adjustment in PMG model 1, 2 and 3 are 78.9%, 78.4% and 79.6%, respectively. For the sake of completeness, we have reported MG and DFE Footnote 5 model results also. But we are more concerned with the results of PMG estimator as Hausman test suggested that PMG is a better model than to MG. The sign of the property tax is positive and significant in the long run as well as in the short run. Results are in line with the findings of Acosta-Ormaechea and Yoo ( 2012 ). Property tax generally considered a good revenue source for state and municipal governments for providing economic and social services in the city. This tax is also able to establish cost–benefit linkages and feasible decisions for the citizens. The positive impact of property taxes indicates that the revenue generation and productive utilization of these revenues exceed the distortionary effect in these states. As we expected, the tax burden is negatively associated with growth performance in both long run and short run. The relationship is showing the distortionary effect of the tax collection in the state economy. In all models, gross investment enhancing the growth in per capita SDP in the long run. Signs are readily justified as enlargement of capital formation has a positive impact on output and employment which channelized to the development outcomes (Swan 1956 , Solow 1956 ).

Commodity and service taxes are negatively related to the growth in per-capita SDP in the long run as well as in short run and findings are similar to the work of Ojede and Yamarik ( 2012 ). Footnote 6 This tax now comes under the Goods & Services taxes, but in the pre-GST period, commodity and service taxes are reducing growth in per capita NSDP. Commodity taxes are indirect taxes and state own tax revenues mostly come from indirect taxes. As indirect taxes, it has certain disadvantages like inflationary pressure in the economy and regressive to the poor section of the society. Our results also support the same hypothesis that increased commodity tax share is harmful. In India, commodity and service tax includes central sale tax, state excise duty, vehicle tax, goods & passenger tax, electricity duty and entertainment tax. Central sale tax was imposed on interstate trade of commodities which is now transformed to Inter-State GST (IGST). According to Das ( 2017 ), if the IGST rate is high to the Revenue Neutral Rate, it will harm the aggregate demand in the economy through the reduction of disposable income. Heavy vehicle and passenger tax collections are creating an abysmal environment for industrial activities. The tax burden variable is also carrying a negative sign in both long run and short run and magnitude is very similar to model 1. Income tax share has become insignificant and positive in the long run and negative insignificant in the short run.

After examining the linear relationships, we extended our analysis to the examination of a non-linear relationship with the use of PMG estimation model. The result from Tables  4 and 5 indicates the existence of a non-linear relationship between tax structure and growth performance for Indian states. The linear coefficient for property taxes has now become negative and the square of it turns out to be positive. Thus, the property taxes show a ‘U’-shaped relationship with states’ growth performance which implies that a rise in property taxes is bad for growth initially and after a threshold point, it becomes growth enhancing. The threshold point for property taxes is 1.88 which indicates that more than 80.77% observation is more than to threshold point.

In the case of commodity and service taxes, both the linear and non-linear coefficients are significant with different signs. However, the coefficient magnitudes are abnormally large and this is due to the inclusion of both linear and quadratic terms into the single equation. The small commodity and service taxes are very bad for the state economy, whereas the large amount of it shows a positive relation. The threshold point for this tax is 4.45 which implies that 79.95% observation lies above the threshold. This is a very interesting result as high commodity and service taxes could lead to high inflation in the economy and high inflation regarded as atrocious for growth. Further investigation of these findings is highly recommendable. As like linear panel regression, the income tax shows no relation in our non-linear regression model also. However, the short-run coefficient for income tax is significant and shows a negative relationship. Income tax is considered to be distortionary tax to the economy in the presence of income and substitution effect (Kotlan 2011 ). Income tax mostly impacts the savings of the households and labour supply which is regarded as an engine of growth.

6 Conclusions and recommendations

In this study, we try to find out the long-run and short-run relationship between different tax structure and economic growth in states of India. Empirical evidence from linear regression suggests that the property tax enhancing growth and commodity & service taxes reduce it. The non-linear regression validates these findings for property taxes where high property taxes are good for growth. In the case of commodity & service taxes, the results become opposite after the threshold point and affecting the growth negatively. Interestingly, we do not find any significant impact of income taxes on growth in both linear and non-linear regressions in the long run.

As far as the total tax burden is concerned, negative relation with the growth performance is verified and results are in line with Arnold et al. ( 2011 ). The negative effect of commodity and service taxes in the short run is expected to be neutralized through the implementation of GST in India. Promotion of growth performance at the state level concerning income taxes is also very crucial. Income tax has a direct effect on individuals and their saving and investment behaviour. On the other side, tax revenues should be placed in productive investments. With the spending, the government can promote inclusive growth, equality and efficiency in the economy.

The most promising path emerged through this study for long-run growth performance in Indian states is to lower the total tax burden and shifting from income and commodity taxes to property tax for revenue generations. The conclusion may be debatable on various grounds as the studied variables do not take into account institutional quality, administrative efficiency in tax collection, fiscal balance and condition of the states and existence of informal sectors. Future research can be done to incorporate these issues.

Availability of data and materials

Dataset analysed in this study is available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

One can see the writings of Rao and Rao ( 2006 ) for brief discussion.

This is the proxy for total tax burden in the economy with certain limitations. It does not include informal economy and expenditure policies.

Telangana state was established in 2014. We merged the data of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to achieve aggregate data for undivided Andhra Pradesh.

Data for Income tax are available for ten states, but inclusion of these states made the model inconsistent due to huge fluctuations in tax revenue collections.

Most of the coefficients of PMG and DFE are in similar range and smaller than to MG estimator. This is due to MG estimator only takes the information of each state time series to estimate long-run and short-run coefficients.

They use sale tax, where our study takes aggregate revenue for commodity and services. However, inference can be drawn as sale tax and is one of the dominant contributors in total commodity and service tax revenue in India.

Abbreviations

Net state domestic product

Goods and service tax

Foreign direct investments

• Pool mean group

Dynamic fixed effect

Auto-regressive distributed lag

The organization for economic co-operation and development

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Neog, Y., Gaur, A.K. Tax structure and economic growth: a study of selected Indian states. Economic Structures 9 , 38 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40008-020-00215-3

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Tax Incentives for Charitable Giving: New Findings from the TCJA

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act eliminated federal charitable giving incentives for roughly 20 percent of US income-tax payers. We study the impact of this on giving. Basic theory and our empirical results suggest heterogeneous effects for taxpayers with different amounts of itemizable expenses. Overall, the reform decreased charitable giving by about $20 billion annually. Using a new method to adjust estimates for retimed giving, we find evidence of moderate intertemporal shifts from pre-announcement of the law. The permanent price elasticity of giving estimates range from .6 for the average donor to over 2 for those predicted to be most responsive to the reform.

The authors received no funding to conduct this study. The collection of the PSID data used by the authors was partly supported by the National Institutes of Health [R01 HD069609, R01 AG040213]; and the National Science Foundation [SES 1157698, 1623684]. Collection of the Philanthropy Panel Study data within the PSID was begun in 2001 with funding from the Atlantic Philanthropies, with continuing waves funded by partnering donors; recent institutional donors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Fidelity Charitable Catalyst Fund, Google.org Charitable Giving Fund, and The John Templeton Foundation. We are grateful for helpful comments and suggestions from participants at the 9th Annual Conference of the Science of Philanthropy Initiative, the University of Colorado Denver, and the 51st ARNOVA Annual Conference. We are also grateful to Dan Feenberg for his creation of, and providing help with, NBER’s TAXSIM. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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• Personal tax
• Capital Gains Tax

Furnished holiday lettings tax regime abolition

This measure explains the abolishment of the furnished holiday lettings (FHL) tax regime from April 2025.

Abolition of the furnished holiday lettings tax regime

Draft legislation.

PDF , 447 KB , 13 pages

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Draft legislation — accessible version

Explanatory note.

ODT , 20.6 KB

This file is in an OpenDocument format

This measure will abolish the furnished holiday lettings ( FHL ) tax regime from April 2025, removing the tax advantages that landlords who offer short-term holiday lets have over those who provide standard residential properties.

The government is publishing draft legislation to abolish the FHL tax regime. The documents include:

• a tax information and impact note (TIIN), which sets out what the policy seeks to achieve, and a summary of the expected impacts
• draft legislation
• an explanatory note which provides a more detailed guide to the legislation

To provide comments, please contact Robert Nott on email: [email protected] by 15 September 2024.

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US, Germany key holdouts as G20 nations push for a plan to tax world’s billionaires

Calls for a global minimum tax rate for the ultrarich were stymied at a meeting of the world’s top finance leaders in Brazil.

The world’s most influential finance leaders vowed to work together toward effectively taxing the ultrarich but stopped short of agreeing on how to do so at a meeting in Rio de Janeiro last week.

In a joint declaration on Friday, finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 major economies said that “ultra-high-net-worth individuals” should “contribute their fair share in taxes.”

“No one should be able to evade taxation, including by circumventing transparency standards,” the declaration said.

As the 2024 host of the G20 forum, Brazil has made taxing the ultrarich its cause célèbre, commissioning economist Gabriel Zucman to create a blueprint for a global scheme to tax billionaires’ wealth — an idea once dismissed as “utopian,” he said.

In his report, Zucman estimated that a coordinated push by governments to tax the world’s approximately 3,000 billionaires 2% of their wealth would generate between $200 and $250 billion a year.

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He added that extending the proposed minimum tax rate to “centimillionaires,” whose estimated wealth exceeds $100 million, would raise an additional $100 to $140 billion.

Several countries in Europe, Latin America and Africa backed Brazil’s call for a global minimum wealth tax, similar to the global minimum tax rate for multinational corporations agreed to by more than 130 countries in 2021. The United States and Germany were key holdouts.

“[Tax] policy is very difficult to coordinate globally,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told reporters on the sidelines of the G20 meeting. “And we don’t see a need or really think it’s desirable to try to negotiate a global agreement on that. We think that all countries should make sure that their taxation systems are fair and progressive.”

Germany’s finance ministry labeled the idea “irrelevant,” according to France 24 .

While no agreement was reached during the finance leaders’ meeting on July 25 and 26, their joint declaration noted that improved cooperation between G20 members could “involve exchanging best practices, encouraging debates around tax principles, and devising anti-avoidance mechanisms, including addressing potentially harmful tax practices.”

Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said he saw the declaration “not as the end of a journey, but as a starting point.”

Longtime advocates for the global minimum wealth tax, including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, also urged the G20 to go further. Stiglitz, who co-chairs the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate, a group of top economists, suggested the United Nations was the appropriate forum to continue the discussion.

The idea of taxing the super-rich and trying to have more progressive system of international taxation is something that is on the table now. — economist Ricardo Martner

For decades, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, representing mostly high-income countries, has set the global tax agenda. But negotiations over a U.N. framework convention on tax, which could shift power away from the OECD, are currently underway in New York.

“The idea of taxing the super-rich and trying to have more progressive system of international taxation is something that is on the table now,” Ricardo Martner , an economist and ICRICT commissioner, told ICIJ.

Martner, who is based in Chile, said that African countries and some Latin American countries do not perceive the OECD process as “inclusive and equitable,” spurring the push to give the U.N. more sway, despite ongoing OECD-led initiatives to curb corporate profit-shifting .

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Wealth and corporate taxes have proved to be a sticking point during early negotiations over the U.N. tax convention, and Yellen said on Friday that she believes the OECD, which oversaw the 2021 global corporate minimum tax deal, remains the best forum for complex tax negotiations.

“We don’t want to see this shifted to the U.N.,” Yellen said. “We’ve made a huge amount of progress, and the U.N. doesn’t have the technical expertise to do this.”

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