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Tax Evasion and Inequality
Open accessAbstract
Drawing on a unique dataset of leaked customer lists from offshore financial institutions matched to administrative wealth records in Scandinavia, we show that offshore tax evasion is highly concentrated among the rich. The skewed distribution of offshore wealth implies high rates of tax evasion at the top: we find that the 0.01 percent richest households evade about 25 percent of their taxes. By contrast, tax evasion detected in stratified random tax audits is less than 5 percent throughout the distribution. Top wealth shares increase substantially when accounting for unreported assets, highlighting the importance of factoring in tax evasion to properly measure inequality. (JEL D31, H24, H26, K34)
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Alstadsæter, Johannesen, and Zucman (2019) argue that the top 0.01 percent evades about 25 percent of its tax liability by moving assets and investment income abroad.
“Combining the micro data from specific leaks with estimates of the aggregate amount of offshore wealth from macroeconomic statistics (Zucman 2013), they argue that the top 0.01 percent evades about 25 percent of its tax liability by moving assets and investment income abroad.”
From Taxation and Migration: Evidence and Policy Implications (2020) · cites this paper as Alstadsæter, Johannesen, and Zucman (2019)
Alstadsæter, Johannesen, and Zucman (2019) show that the probability of hiding assets offshore rises sharply at the extreme tail of the wealth distribution; the top 0.01 percent owns about half of leaked offshore wealth.
“They show that the probability of hiding assets offshore rises sharply at the extreme tail of the wealth distribution: the top 0.01 percent of the wealth distribution owns about half of the leaked offshore wealth.”
From Taxation and Migration: Evidence and Policy Implications (2020) · cites this paper as Alstadsæter, Johannesen, and Zucman (2019)
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Citations
Cites
Wealth Inequality in the United States since 1913: Evidence from Capitalized Income Tax Data
Saez, E., & Zucman, G. (2016) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.1093/qje/qjw004 · Cited by 1,636
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Taxation and Migration: Evidence and Policy Implications
Kleven, H., Landais, C., Muñoz, M., & Stantcheva, S. (2020) · Journal of Economic Perspectives · doi:10.1257/jep.34.2.119 · Cited by 226
Wealth Inequality in South Africa, 1993–2017
Chatterjee, A., Czajka, L., & Gethin, A. (2022) · The World Bank Economic Review · doi:10.1093/wber/lhab012 · Cited by 70
Beyond Carbon Pricing: Tax Reform is Climate Policy
Green, J. F. (2021) · Global Policy · doi:10.1111/1758-5899.12920 · Cited by 54
Metadata
- Authors
- Alstadsæter, A., Johannesen, N., & Zucman, G.
- Affiliations
- Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NO)
- University of Copenhagen (DK)
- National Bureau of Economic Research (US)
- Venue
- American Economic Review
- Publisher
- American Economic Association
- Published
- 2019-06-01
- Volume
- 109
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 2073-2103
- ISSN
- 0002-8282 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2754537061
- Cited by
- 595
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 48 · 2025: 106 · 2024: 77 · 2023: 103 · 2022: 62 · 2021: 86 · 2020: 76 · 2019: 22
- FWCI
- 77.40
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- American Economic Review (publishedVersion)
- Research at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Research at the University of Copenhagen (University of Copenhagen) (submittedVersion)
- Econstor (Econstor) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Laura and John Arnold Foundation
- National Research Foundation
- Danmarks Grundforskningsfond
- Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond
- Norges Forskningsråd
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Taxation and Compliance Studies
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Economic and Fiscal Studies
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Accounting › Corporate Taxation and Avoidance
- Keywords
- tax evasion, income inequality, wealth distribution, top wealth shares, tax audit, Scandinavia
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