Tax Liability and Tax Evasion in a Competitive Labor Market

In a competitive labor market, a change in the legal incidence of a tax on labor will not alter employment if tax obligations are fulfilled. However, this irrelevance result may no longer apply if taxes can be evaded. In particular, a shift from payroll to income taxes will lower employment. This will be the case if workers exhibit constant absolute risk aversion, have a utility function, which is strongly separable in income and the disutility from working, and the penalty for evasion is not proportional to the amount of taxes evaded. Accordingly, tax evasion opportunities can make the legal incidence of a tax on labor an important determinant of its economic incidence. Copyright 2005 Blackwell Publishing Inc..