Self-Employment Income Reporting on Surveys

Christian Imboden, John Voorheis and Caroline Weber

Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies

Abstract: We examine the relation between administrative income data and survey reports for self-employed and wage-earning respondents from 2000 - 2015. The self-employed report 40 percent more wages and self-employment income in the survey than in tax administrative records; this estimate nets out differences between these two sources that are also shared by wage-earners. We provide evidence that differential reporting incentives are an important explanation of the larger self-employed gap by exploiting a well-known artifact – self-employed respondents exhibit substantial bunching at the first EITC kink in their administrative records. We do not observe the same behavior in their survey responses even after accounting for survey measurement concerns.

Keywords: Income Reporting; Survey Accuracy; Measurement Error; Tax Evasion; Tax Avoidance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C83 H24 H26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43 pages
Date: 2023-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-acc, nep-iue, nep-lma and nep-pub
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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https://www2.census.gov/library/working-papers/2023/adrm/ces/CES-WP-23-19.pdf First version, 2023 (application/pdf)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cen:wpaper:23-19

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