Although tax non-filing and the resulting tax evasion are a challenge to public welfare, particularly in developing countries, scholarly knowledge on taxable citizens who do not register as taxpayers, also known as the ‘ghosts’, is minimal. To expand this knowledge base, this empirical paper...

The traditional economic approach to enforce tax compliance rests on the assumption that taxpayers are reluctant to pay their share, are inclined to maximize their egoistic goals by rationally considering audit probability and fines in case of detected evasion, and comply only if enforced to...

Traditionally, research focuses on individual taxpayers that - when faced with a decision under uncertainty - are assumed to maximize their profits through rational decision processes. However, economic psychology and behavioral economics reveal several anomalies where the observed effects are...

Although there is ample research on what affects tax morale, empirical evidence that tax morale affects tax evasion is scarce. The reason for this scarcity, is the difficulty to connect a measure of tax morale to a reliable proxy of tax evasion. The primary contribution, is that I identify an...

When do ex-ante beliefs about the values of others affect compliance and honesty? To answer this question, we conduct an experiment, in which subjects face repeated trade-offs between monetary gain and honesty. As a source of exogenous variation, half of the subjects were told that their choices...

This study examines the relation between risk-based tax audit strategies and corporate tax avoidance. We exploit OECD data across 54 countries on risk profiling, predictive modeling, and internal intelligence functions in tax administrations from 2014 to 2017 to investigate whether risk-based...

In this paper, we investigate the acceptance by taxpayers and tax auditors of voluntary e-audits, i.e., online-based, automated tax audits. Further, we analyze the effects of e-audits on trust in and power of tax authorities. Perceived benefits and shortcomings of e-audits for taxpayers and tax...

This study investigates psychological determinants of tax compliance, particularly the predictions of the Slippery Slope Framework (SSF; Kirchler et al., 2008), among large businesses and their tax auditors. The SSF predicts that trust in tax authorities determines voluntary tax compliance and...

Governments have taken remarkable measures during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in their efforts to safeguard citizens' health and the economy. As a consequence, public debts have reached unprecedented levels, which will require at some point higher taxes. Ensuring that citizens pay these taxes...

This study uses a laboratory experiment to investigate the effect of tax audits on post-audit tax compliance. An important feature of our experimental design is the addition of audit ”effectiveness” to our audit mechanism, where effectiveness is defined as the share of undeclared income that...