A contest with the taxman - The impact of tax rates on tax evasion and wastefully invested resources

Ralph-C Bayer ()

Public Economics from EconWPA

Abstract: We develop a moral hazard model with auditing where both the principal and the agent can influence the probability that the true state of nature is verified. This setting is widely applicable for situations where fraudulent reporting with costly state verification takes place. However, we use the framework to investigate tax evasion. We model tax evasion as a concealment-detection contest between the taxpayer and the authority. We show that higher tax rates cause more evasion and increase the resources wasted in the contest. Additionally, we …nd conditions under which a government should enforce incentive compatible auditing in order to reduce wasted resources.

Keywords: Tax Evasion; Auditing Rules; Contest; Moral Hazard (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H26 D82 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-acc, nep-law and nep-pbe
Date: 2004-12-14
Note: Type of Document - pdf
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http://129.3.20.41/eps/pe/papers/0412/0412010.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: A contest with the taxman - the impact of tax rates on tax evasion and wastefully invested resources (2006)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwppe:0412010

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