The Occurrence of Tax Amnesties: Theory and Evidence

Ralph-C Bayer (), Harald Oberhofer and Hannes Winner

No 2015-05, School of Economics and Public Policy Working Papers from University of Adelaide, School of Economics and Public Policy

Abstract: This paper presents a theoretical model and empirical evidence to explain the occurrence of tax amnesties. We treat amnesties as endogenous, resulting from a strategic game between many taxpayers discounting future payments from punishment and a government that balances costs and benefits of amnesty programs. From the model we derive hypotheses about the factors that should influence the occurrence of tax amnesties. To test these predictions empirically, we rely on amnesty information from US States between 1981 and 2011. In line with the theoretical model, our empirical findings suggest that the likelihood of amnesties is mainly driven by a governmentÂ’s fiscal requirements and the taxpayers' expectations on future amnesties.

Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2015-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pbe and nep-pub
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
https://economics.adelaide.edu.au/research/papers/doc/wp2015-05.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (https://economics.adelaide.edu.au/research/papers/doc/wp2015-05.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://able.adelaide.edu.au/economics-and-public-policy/research/papers/doc/wp2015-05.pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The occurrence of tax amnesties: Theory and evidence (2015)
Working Paper: The Occurrence of Tax Amnesties: Theory and Evidence (2014)
Working Paper: The Occurrence of Tax Amnesties: Theory and Evidence (2014)
Working Paper: The Occurrence of Tax Amnesties. Theory and Evidence (2014)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:adl:wpaper:2015-05

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in School of Economics and Public Policy Working Papers from University of Adelaide, School of Economics and Public Policy Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Qazi Haque ().