The Occurrence of Tax Amnesties: Theory and Evidence

Ralph-C Bayer (ralph.bayer@adelaide.edu.au), Harald Oberhofer and Hannes Winner

No 2014-6, Working Papers in Economics from University of Salzburg

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 trades off costs and benefits of amnesty programs. From the model we derive hypotheses about the factors that should influence the occurrence of tax amnesties. For our empirical test 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 government's fiscal requirements and the taxpayers' expectations on future amnesties.

Keywords: Tax amnesties; strategic game; US states (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H11 H26 H72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2014-11-27
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pub
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The occurrence of tax amnesties: Theory and evidence (2015)
Working Paper: The Occurrence of Tax Amnesties: Theory and Evidence (2015)
Working Paper: The Occurrence of Tax Amnesties: Theory and Evidence (2014)
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