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Cheating Ourselves: The Economics of Tax Evasion
Abstract
No government can announce a tax system and then rely on taxpayers' sense of duty to remit what is owed. Some dutiful people will undoubtedly pay what they owe, but many others will not. Over time the ranks of the dutiful will shrink, as they see how they are being taken advantage of by the others. Thus, paying taxes must be made a legal responsibility of citizens, with penalties attendant on noncompliance. But even in the face of those penalties, substantial tax evasion exists. Tax evasion is widespread, always has been, and probably always will be. This essay reviews what is known about the magnitude, nature, and determinants of tax evasion, with an emphasis on the U.S. income tax. It then places this information into a conceptual context, examining various models and theories, and considers policy implications.
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Citations
Cites
Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979) · Econometrica · doi:10.2307/1914185 · Cited by 48,524
Income tax evasion: a theoretical analysis
Allingham, M. G., & Sandmo, A. (1972) · Journal of Public Economics · doi:10.1016/0047-2727(72)90010-2 · Cited by 4,970
Cited by
The behavioralist as tax collector: Using natural field experiments to enhance tax compliance
Hallsworth, M., List, J. A., Metcalfe, R. D., & Vlaev, I. (2017) · Journal of Public Economics · doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2017.02.003 · Cited by 764
“The Decline of the U.S. Labor Share”
Elsby, M. W. L., Hobijn, B., & Şahin, A. (2013) · Brookings Papers on Economic Activity · doi:10.1353/eca.2013.0016 · Cited by 779
Alstadsæter, A., Johannesen, N., & Zucman, G. (2019) · American Economic Review · doi:10.1257/aer.20172043 · Cited by 595
Why Can Modern Governments Tax So Much? An Agency Model of Firms as Fiscal Intermediaries
Kleven, H. J., Kreiner, C. T., & Saez, E. (2009) · doi:10.3386/w15218 · Cited by 88
Effects of institutional history and leniency on collusive corruption and tax evasion
Buckenmaier, J., Dimant, E., & Mittone, L. (2020) · Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization · doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2018.04.004 · Cited by 33
Metadata
- Authors
- Slemrod, J.
- Venue
- Journal of Economic Perspectives
- Publisher
- American Economic Association
- Published
- 2007-01-01
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 25-48
- ISSN
- 0895-3309 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2143201948
- Cited by
- 1,168
- References
- 2
- FWCI
- 79.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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