We ask whether attitudes toward government play a causal role in the evasion of U.S. personal income taxes. We first use individual-level survey data to demonstrate a link between sharing the party of the president and trust in the administration generally and opinions on taxation and spending policy, more specifically. Next, we move to the county level, and measure tax behavior as elections, d...

We ask whether attitudes toward government play a causal role in the evasion of U.S. personal income taxes. We first use individual-level survey data to demonstrate a link between sharing the party of the president and trust in the administration generally and opinions on taxation and spending policy, more specifically. Next, we move to the county level, and measure tax behavior as elections, d...

We ask whether attitudes toward government play a causal role in the evasion of U.S. personal income taxes. We first use individual-level survey data to demonstrate a link between sharing the party of the president and trust in the administration generally and opinions on taxation and spending policy, more specifically. Next, we move to the county level, and measure tax behavior as elections, d...

Corruption, evasion and the abuse of power — and the possibility thereof — are pervasive features of economic activity. A prominent instance is tax collection. This paper examines the implications of corruptibility and the potential abuse of authority for the effects and optimal design of (potentially non-linear) tax collection schemes. Amongst the findings are that: the distributional effects ...

The taxation of diesel fuel varies by use. Consumers using diesel fuel on-road must pay state and federal highway taxes while diesel fuel consumed for residential heating, industrial use, farming or off-road travel do not pay taxes. Variation in the taxation of diesel fuel creates the incentive for firms and individuals to evade on-road diesel taxes. Firms evading on-road diesel taxes purchase ...

This paper argues that widening income inequality contributes to the propensity to evade by both reducing the probability of detection and increasing compliance opportunity costs. Lower detection probability occurs as rising inequality gradually alters the composition of income from being employment-based (i.e., matchable) to investment-based (i.e., non-matchable). Greater economic polarization...

Taxpayers are more compliant than the traditional economic models predict. Why? The literature calls it the “puzzle of tax compliance”. In this paper we use field, experimental and survey data to investigate the empirical evidence on whether presence of tax morale helps to resolve this puzzle. The results reveal a strong correlation between tax morale and tax evasion/compliance which confirms t...

This paper examines tax evasion in the diesel fuel market. Diesel fuel used for on-road purposes is taxed, while other uses are untaxed, creating an incentive for firms and individuals to evade on-road diesel taxes by purchasing untaxed diesel fuel and then using it for on-road use. We examine the effects of a federal regulatory innovation in October 1993, the addition of red dye to untaxed die...