Voluntary Disclosure of Evaded Taxes - Increasing Revenues, or Increasing Incentives to Evade?

Langenmayr, Dominika (12. August 2014): Voluntary Disclosure of Evaded Taxes - Increasing Revenues, or Increasing Incentives to Evade? Münchener Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Beiträge (VWL) 2014-41

Abstract

Many countries apply lower fines to tax evading individuals when they voluntarily disclose the tax evasion they committed. I model such voluntary disclosure mechanisms theoretically and show that while such mechanisms increase the incentive to evade taxes, they nevertheless increase tax revenues net of administrative costs. I then test the effects of voluntary disclosure in two separate empirical analyses. First, I confirm that voluntary disclosure mechanisms increase tax evasion, using the introduction of the 2009 offshore voluntary disclosure program in the U.S. for identification. Second, I quantify the tax revenues of voluntary disclosures by considering how some state-level governments in Germany bought whistle-blower data from foreign bank employees, thereby increasing the detection probability and the usage of voluntary disclosures.

• Dokumententyp: Paper
• Keywords: Tax evasion, voluntary disclosure, self-reporting
• Fakultät: Volkswirtschaft ; Volkswirtschaft > Munich Discussion Papers in Economics
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 330 Wirtschaft
• JEL Classification: H26, K42, H24
• Sprache: Englisch

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