Rebuttal of Hashimzade, Myles and Tran-Nam (2009) “New Approaches to the Economics of Tax Evasion”

Abstract

In a recent, 58 page, paper, Hashimzade, Myles and Tran-Nam (2009) .New Approaches to the Economics of Tax Evasion.survey alternative approaches to tax evasion. Their central conclusion is, in their own words (p. 56): .What they [the non-expected utility models] do not do is change the relationship between the tax rate and the level of evasion..We show that their central conclusion is incorrect. We also show that their representation of our work [(2007) "Why Do People Pay Taxes? Prospect Theory Versus Expected Utility Theory", Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 64: 171.192 ] is highly misleading, and incorrect.