Shrinking the Tax Gap: Approaches and Revenue Potential

Natasha Sarin and Lawrence H. Summers

No 26475, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Between 2020 and 2029, the IRS will fail to collect nearly $7.5 trillion of taxes it is due. It is not possible to calculate with precision how much of this “tax gap” could be collected. This paper offers a naïve approach. The analysis suggests that with feasible changes in policy, the IRS could aspire to shrink the tax gap by around 15 percent in the next decade—generating over $1 trillion in additional revenue by performing more audits (especially of high-income earners), increasing information reporting requirements, and investing in information technology. These investments will increase efficiency and are likely to be very progressive.

JEL-codes: H0 H2 H26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ict, nep-iue, nep-pbe and nep-pub
Note: CF PE
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26475.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:nbr:nberwo:26475

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w26475

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().