Risk-based audits in a behavioural model.

The tools of predictive analytics are widely used in the analysis of large data sets to predict future patterns in the system. In particular, predictive analytics is used to estimate risk of engaging in certain behavior. Risk-based audits are used by revenue services to target potentially noncompliant taxpayers, but the results of predictive analytics serve predominantly only as a guide rather than a rule. “Auditor judgment” retains an important role in selecting audit targets. This article assesses the effectiveness of using predictive analytics in a model of the compliance decision that incorporates several components from behavioral economics: subjective beliefs about audit probabilities, a social custom reward from honest tax payment, and a degree of risk aversion that increases with age. Simulation analysis shows that predictive analytics are successful in raising compliance and that the resulting pattern of audits is very close to being a cutoff rule

Risk-Based Audits in a Behavioural Model

The tools of predictive analytics are widely used in the analysis of large data sets to predict future patterns in the system. In particular, predictive analytics is used to estimate risk of engaging in certain behavior. Risk-based audits are used by revenue services to target potentially noncompliant taxpayers, but the results of predictive analytics serve predominantly only as a guide rather than a rule. “Auditor judgment” retains an important role in selecting audit targets. This article assesses the effectiveness of using predictive analytics in a model of the compliance decision that incorporates several components from behavioral economics: subjective beliefs about audit probabilities, a social custom reward from honest tax payment, and a degree of risk aversion that increases with age. Simulation analysis shows that predictive analytics are successful in raising compliance and that the resulting pattern of audits is very close to being a cutoff rule

The Marginal Cost of Public Funds in Growing Economies

The marginal cost of public funds (MCF) measures the cost to the economy of raising government revenue. The MCF can be used to guide reform of the tax system and to determine an efficient level of government expenditure. It can also be used as an input into cost-benefit analysis. Previous applications of the concept have developed a methodology in a context of a static economy. We develop the methodology of the MCF to extend the concept to growing economies. The extended concept is then applied to variants of the Barro endogenous growth model with a productive public input. The MCF is used to address the choice between labour and capital taxes and to explore the implications of infrastructural spill-overs across regions

Book Review: Tax Justice and Tax Law: Understanding Unfairness in Tax Systems

This book is a selection of papers presented at the Fourth Tax Policy Conference at the University of Cambridge Centre for Tax Law in July 2019. The editors of the volume, Dominic de Cogan and Peter Harris, have undertaken a formidable task in bringing together different approaches to the idea of tax justice. The purpose, however, is not to reconcile or, as described in the foreword, “to iron out” the differences in the approaches and ideas, but to understand “how to agree and disagree about tax justice” (p. i). The contributions are collected in five parts, “Conceptions of Justice”, “Social Provision”, “Citizenship”, “International”, and “Justice and Procedures”, preceded by “Mapping Tax Justice Arguments,” an introductory chapter by Dominic de Cogan. An insightful and detailed review of the book’s contribution to the debate in tax law by Peter Hongler (2021) was published in Intertax. This review will focus on the relevance of the discussion for the research and practice in tax administration. Thus, it contains more details about the contributions where actions of tax authorities are considered explicitly and only a brief summary of other parts of the book

Distributional Effects of Endogenous Discounting

Short communicationThis paper studies the effect of endogenous discounting on the distribution of wealth in a Bewley–Huggett economy with an exogenous borrowing constraint. We introduce the Koopmans–Uzawa–Epstein time preferences in the benchmark model of Achdou et al. (2022) and investigate the implications on saving behaviour and wealth distribution across different wealth classes. The results highlight a self-reinforcing redistribution mechanism, through which the endogenous discounting can lead to a higher equilibrium interest rate and a more unequal wealth distribution, in comparison to the benchmark model with constant discount rate

On the solution of the variational optimisation in the rational inattention framework

I analyse the solution method for the variational optimisation problem in the rational inattention framework proposed by Christopher A. Sims. The solution, in general, does not exist, although it may exist in exceptional cases. I show that the solution does not exist for the quadratic and the logarithmic objective functions analysed by Sims (2003, 2006). For a linear-quadratic objective function a solution can be constructed under restrictions on all but one of its parameters. This approach is, therefore, unlikely to be applicable to a wider set of economic models

The Use of Agent-Based Modelling to Investigate Tax Compliance

Agent-based modelling can be used to investigate the behavioural and social aspects of tax compliance. We illustrate the approach with two models. The first model emphasises the role of occupational choice in tax compliance, and explores the effect of non-compliance on risk-taking and income distribution. The modelling of the compliance decision is discussed with an emphasis on decision-making under uncertainty and social interaction. We then add to the model a social network which governs the transmission of information on attitudes and beliefs, and investigate alternative audit strategies. A strategy of auditing a fixed number of taxpayers from each occupation dominates alternative strategies (including random and focussed strategies) in the sense of first-order stochastic dominance

Fiscal policy and inequality in a model with endogenous positional concerns

Copyright © 2022 The Authors. We investigate the dynamics of wealth inequality in an economy where households have positional preferences, with the strength of the positional concern determined endogenously by inequality of wealth distribution in the society. We demonstrate that in the long run such an economy converges to a unique egalitarian steady-state equilibrium, with all households holding equal positive wealth, when the initial inequality is sufficiently low. Otherwise, the steady state is characterised by polarisation of households into rich, who own all the wealth, and poor, whose wealth is zero. A fiscal policy with government consumption funded by taxes on labour income and wealth can move the economy from any initial state towards an egalitarian equilibrium with a higher aggregate wealth