Tax evasion and corruption: endogenous deterrence and the perverse effects of fines

Antonio Acconcia, Marcello D'Amato and Riccardo Martina

STUDI ECONOMICI, 2010, vol. 2010/101, issue 101, 31-53

Abstract: We consider a simple economy where self interested taxpayers have incentives to evade taxes and to escape sanctions by bribing public officials in charge of tax collection. However, tax collectors may be monitored by second-level inspectors whose incentives to exert detection activity are endogenously determined. In this framework, it is shown that the effects of classical deterrence instruments, such as fines, may be perverse; in particular, larger fines for corruption directly reduce corruption and indirectly reduce incentives to monitor it determining, as an overall effect, an increase in the underlying offence, that is tax evasion. Nevertheless, on the normative side, we show that, even if the Government cannot commit to a given level of deterrence, the maximal fine principle still holds.

JEL-codes: H2 K4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Rivista. ... 680&Tipo=ArticoloPDF (text/html)
Single articles can be downloaded buying download credits, for info: https://www.francoangeli.it/DownloadCredit

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:fan:steste:v:html10.3280/ste2010-101002

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.francoang ... io.aspx?IDRivista=59

Access Statistics for this article

STUDI ECONOMICI is currently edited by FrancoAngeli

More articles in STUDI ECONOMICI from FrancoAngeli Editore
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Stefania Rosato ().