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This study investigates how a tax agency would assess the liability of a taxpayer who has first adopted a new, controversial tax‐saving scheme, which might be employed by other taxpayers. The tax agency’s post‐audit assessment to the first taxpayer influences whether and how the innovation will diffuse among taxpayers. We find that it is optimal for the tax agency to settle the issue regardless of whether and how fast the innovation diffuses. A trial is too costly an option for the agency: losing in court would make the innovation public knowledge, and other taxpayers would immediately adopt the new scheme. Neither the number of other taxpayers nor the speed of diffusion affects the amount of the optimal post‐audit assessment. These results suggest that a tax practitioner who markets a new tax‐saving scheme need not limit the speed of diffusion for fear of an aggressive response from the agency.

This study aims to understand the determinants of the relationship between tax authorities and taxpayers in the digital era and how this relationship impacts tax compliance behavior, especially in the context of emerging countries like Morocco.

A qualitative methodology was adopted, involving interviews with tax inspectors and auditors, certified accountants’ experts and tax consultants. Data analysis was conducted using IRAMUTEQ software.

The research highlights that the relationship's quality and the level of mutual trust between tax authorities and taxpayers are critical in determining tax compliance in the digital era. Central factors affecting this relationship encompass effective communication, simplification of tax procedures, clarity of tax laws and the digitization of tax services. Furthermore, the study emphasizes that these dynamics and determinants significantly influence the tax compliance behavior of taxpayers in Morocco, revealing intricate connections between relational aspects and compliance attitudes.

The findings suggest that fostering a mutually trusting relationship, through improved communication, simplification and digitization, can enhance taxpayer compliance. This is valuable for policymakers and tax authorities developing strategies to improve tax systems in emerging countries.

This study contributes to the sparse literature on the relationship between tax authorities and taxpayers in the and digital era, offering new insights into factors that influence tax compliance in the post COVID-19 crisis context. Its practical recommendations provide a foundation for developing strategies aimed at improving this relationship and, consequently, taxpayer compliance behavior in emerging countries.

The cost of compliance is an essential variable to consider when administering a tax system. One recent study estimates that the yearly federal tax compliance burden in the US exceeds $431 billion dollars, and this cost does not include the potential greatest cost of all – changes in taxpayer behavior that reduces economic efficiency (Laffer, Winegarden, & Childs, 2011). One example of such behavior is the renunciation of US citizenship due to the impact of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) reporting requirements. Using this context, our study examines how FATCA compliance costs can affect taxpayer behavior in a manner that reduces economic efficiency. We collected responses from 197 experienced US taxpayers living in the US. Our study finds that when tax compliance costs are high, taxpayers may be more likely to renounce their citizenship to avoid FATCA reporting requirements. We further learn that tax compliance costs may increase the likelihood of citizenship renunciation even in the presence of a minimal US tax burden. Supplemental mediation analysis demonstrates that one's perceived fairness of compliance does not mediate the effect of high compliance costs on a taxpayer's renunciation decision; however, one's perceived fairness of compliance and fear of sanctions, collectively, partially explain the effect of tax burden on the renunciation decision. In addition, we find that ethics, the perceived probability of detection, and average income level affect the decision to renounce citizenship. Our findings suggest broader impacts of tax policy and provide a foundation for future research to further explore domestic and foreign tax compliance behaviors.

We use the 1995 IRS Public Use Tax File in simulation models to examine the factors associated with the widely anticipated growth in the alternative minimum tax (AMT). The evidence suggests that the changes in the marginal tax rate structure associated with the 2001 and 2003 tax legislation are likely to result in exponential growth in AMT incidence and create a substantial hidden marriage tax penalty, a result contradictory with the intent of these tax law changes. The evidence further suggests that the elimination of preferential long-term capital gain rates for the AMT could effectively fund structural changes in the AMT that would substantially reduce the impact of the AMT on middle and lower income taxpayers, many of whom are liable for the AMT due to the add-back for AMT purposes of such non-tax preferential items as Schedule A adjustments and personal and dependency exemptions.

This paper examines the optimal use of tax incentives relating to the Hawaii sales, use and excise tax. While many states offer exemptions to these taxes, Hawaii is the only known state that ties its excise tax credit to the depreciation method used on the state income tax return. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to use the Hawaii business tax context to illustrate the complex trade-offs and year-by-year analyses that small businesses often must employ in the presence of shifting federal tax policy that indirectly influences state tax structures because of tax coupling. Federal and Hawaii taxpayers can elect to expense depreciable property using the 179 expensing provision or to depreciate using the modified accelerated cost recovery system (MACRS). We develop a model that will help non-corporate small businesses in Hawaii determine their optimal tax cost recovery strategy: (1) Utilize Hawaii Section 179 immediate expensing on purchases of tangible personal property, or alternatively (2) Employ MACRS depreciation on these purchases combined with the Hawaii Capital Goods Excise Credit. Our modeling separately considers the possibility that the proprietor jointly makes the federal and Hawaii cost recovery decision, as well as the alternative possibility that these cost recovery decisions are made independently.

The study illustrates that the interaction of federal and state law differences exacerbated by frequent tax changes may cause significant tax compliance complexity and resulting confusion for small non-corporate business taxpayers who are generally not equipped to wrestle with such issues. From a policy perspective, states may wish to minimize complexity using coupling efforts with federal law or otherwise routinely revisit outdated state tax statutes that indirectly cause unintended tax consequences. States must be cognizant, however, that their own budget constraints may worsen if they fully couple with recent generous federal Section 179 expensing limits.

Prior tax compliance research has largely ignored low-income individual taxpayers, as they have historically been viewed as having an immaterial impact on Federal tax revenues. However, the earned income tax credit (EITC) program has altered the Federal tax revenue landscape in this regard. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) investigated the magnitude of EITC tax overpayments for tax year 1999 and concluded that between 27 and 31% of EITC filings were overstated, resulting in over-payments of between $8.5 and $9.9 billion (IRS, 2002). These excessive payments represented about 0.5% of total Federal revenues and 2.8% of the total tax gap. Thus, to the extent that low-income individual taxpayers intentionally under-report their incomes in order to receive higher EITC’s, the Federal budget is noticeably affected.

This study extends and complements extant tax research by examining the compliance intentions of low-income individual taxpayers. Relying on the theory of planned behavior, we examine the extent to which perceived tax equity (vertical, horizontal and exchange), normative expectations, and legal sanctions affect tax compliance intentions. Consistent with the hypotheses, the results indicate a significant positive relationship between compliance intentions and: (1) equity perceptions of the tax system; (2) normative expectations of compliance; and (3) penalty magnitude. Additionally, the findings suggest two-way interactions between penalty magnitude and exchange equity, and penalty magnitude and normative expectations. Research results reported herein hold important policy implications related to the Federal government’s efforts to reduce tax cheating and increase compliance among low-income individual taxpayers.

This chapter investigates the effects of the corporate sector on the effectiveness of selected tax compliance instruments in the context of large corporate taxpayers belonging to the finance, manufacturing, and service sectors. Applying multilevel logit models based on real tax office and survey data from Bangladesh, it is found that the filing compliance of large corporate taxpayers is influenced by penalty, tax audit, and taxpayer services, while reporting compliance is influenced by tax audit, criminal prosecution, and tax simplification. In the case of payment compliance, two coercive instruments – penalty and tax audit – have been found to be statistically significant. However, when sector characteristics are considered, the extent of the influence of these instruments, and, in some cases, their statistical significance changes. This suggests that the effectiveness of tax compliance instruments, among other things, largely depends on the sector affiliation of corporate taxpayers. Overall, this study establishes that corporate sector plays an important role in the effectiveness of tax compliance instruments, with the caveat that findings might be different if working definitions of the study variables were measured differently.

This study examines contextual influences on taxpayers’ perceptions of a vague “low” probability of detection and the relationship between taxpayers’ perceptions and their likelihood to take questionable tax deductions. As such, we tie psychological theories that explain differential interpretations of qualitative probability phrases (base rate and support theories) to the taxpayer perception literature. Consistent with our hypotheses, taxpayers’ interpretations of “low” differ both between and within subjects, depending on the context in which deductions are presented. On average, our taxpayer subjects are less likely to take questionable deductions perceived to have a higher probability of detection than those perceived to have a lower detection probability. Our results contribute to existing literature by demonstrating that knowledge of subjects’ assessments of an event's probability is integral to designing experiments and drawing conclusions regarding observed behavior. This appears necessary even when researchers provide assessments of detection probabilities and/or employ scenarios for which systematic differences in probability perceptions are not inherently obvious.

Governments often encourage charitable giving through the tax system, by a deduction or tax credit. In 1988, Canada moved from a deduction system to a tax credit system. The tax credit for donations above $250 was calculated at the highest tax rate, even if the taxpayer was at the lowest tax rate. This gives what can be called a “superdeduction.” At the same time, the top rate of tax was reduced. Thus, the cost of giving was reduced for the lower taxpayers and increased for the higher-income taxpayers.

The article reports whether taxpayer behavior changed from 1986 (pre reform) to 1988 and 1992 (post reform). The analysis also investigates the influence of inflation on the charitable donations. The percentage of taxpayers giving over $250 was analysed for both all the taxpayers and those consistently in the low and high tax brackets. The lower-income taxpayers were found to reduce their giving, contrary to expectations. The middle-income taxpayers, in general, increased their giving, which was expected and so took advantage of the superdeduction. The results of the moderate high-income taxpayers were mixed. Taxpayers who had very high incomes decreased their giving, as was expected.

We experimentally investigate how the level of government (either federal or state) and whether funding is being allocated to enforcement or service efforts in a revenue agency affects trust in the agency, as well as support for the funding initiative. We find that the two independent variables interact, such that trust in the state agency is not affected by whether the proposed funding would be allocated to service or enforcement efforts. But, at the federal level (the Internal Revenue Service), trust in the agency is significantly higher when the proposed funding is to hire additional service employees as opposed to hiring additional enforcement employees. We also find that the level of government moderates the mediating effect of trust in the agency on the relation between the use of funds and support for the funding.