Previous research argues that law expresses social values and could, therefore, influence individual behavior independently of enforcement and penalization. Using three laboratory experiments on tax avoidance and evasion, we study how legality affects individuals' decisions. We find that,...

In a real-effort laboratory experiment to manipulate evasion opportunities, we study whether the moral evaluation of tax evasion is subject to a self-serving bias. We find that tax morale is egoistically biased: Subjects with the opportunity to evade taxes judge tax evasion as less unethical as...

Aggressive tax planning efforts of highly profitable multinational companies (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS)) have become the subject of intense public debate in recent years. As a response, several international initiatives and parties have called for more transparency in financial...

Aggressive tax planning efforts of highly profitable multinational companies (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS)) have recently become the subject of intense public debate. As a response, several international initiatives and parties have called for more transparency in financial reporting,...

In its 2015 Final Report on “Measuring and Monitoring BEPS, Action 11”, the OECD introduced six indicators to quantify and evaluate base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) activity over time. In this study, we revisit three selected indicators, provide a numerical update for recent periods...

Firms constantly face new and more stringent tax disclosure requirements and, increasingly, paying a fair share of tax is seen as part of corporate social responsibility. In this paper, we investigate whether mandating qualitative tax disclosure leads to intended outcomes, using, as an exogenous...

We develop a theory of cross-border income shifting in response to subnational personal taxation in a federation and examine its implications for the excess burden of personal taxes. We show how a properly-chosen federal tax rate can offset the fiscal externality between states and facilitate...

As part of its action plan against base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS), the OECD (2015) has proposed six indicators to measure profit shifting activity. These indicators add to past and ongoing efforts in academic tax research to empirically identify the scale and tax sensitivity of...

Firms are facing progressively more stringent tax disclosure requirements. In this paper, we examine whether increased qualitative tax transparency leads to intended outcomes using, as an exogenous shock, the 2016 UK reform that mandated the disclosure of a tax strategy for firms above a certain...

In its 2015 Final Report on “Measuring and Monitoring BEPS, Action 11”, the OECD introduced six indicators to quantify and evaluate base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) activity over time. In this study, we revisit three selected indicators, provide a numerical update for recent periods...