Research on tax behavior has recognized the necessity of changing tax authorities' approach from an enforcement to a service orientation. However, empirical investigations of the effect of perceived service orientation on tax compliance are scarce. The present study draws conclusions from survey...

A dynamic equilibrium model of an economy with underground trade is developed in which agents devote effort to search, building up networks of underground contacts. The model is used to illustrate dynamic responses to tax increases. The model is shown to be consistent with the stylized fact that...

This paper studies the design of indirect redistributive taxation and of corrective taxation in the presence of status goods, allowing for the possibility that illegal copies of those goods may be purchased on black markets (the phenomenon of piracy). Heavy taxation of status goods, despite the...

Is it a sheer coincidence that the egalitarian Scandinavian countries have significantly larger government employment shares than the much less egalitarian United States? A positive correlation between equality and government employment share in the OECD indicates that it is not a coincidence....

This paper derives and examines the provision rule for public inputs within a two-class framework of optimal income taxation. If income redistribution policies must be designed under a self-selection constraint because the ability of any particular worker is private information, public input...

It is often argued that without tax-exemptions for the production sector environmental tax reforms substantially reduce profits and endanger employment. We challenge this view and investigate the consequences of both a small and alarge tax reform in the case of a monopoly. We show that these...

This paper presents a general-equilibrium model of environmental tax reform that introduces a health status depending on environmental quality and medical consumption, and tax deductions for medical expenditure. It distinguishes between two types of health effect: environmentally and medically...

The European Commission is evaluating the performance of the common VAT, which has many shortcomings. The numerous exemptions and differentiated rate structures violate the logic and functionality of the VAT. The exemptions distort input choices and outsourcing policies. Reduced rates are...

This paper deals with optimal income and commodity taxation in an economy, where alcohol is an externality-generating consumption good. In our model, alcohol can be bought domestically, imported, or produced illegally. Border trade alone implies an incentive to set the domestic alcohol tax below...

This paper extends the previous literature on optimal redistributive taxation in the presence of externalities to a multiexternality setting. While taxes on income and on 'clean' commodities are still unaffected by the externalities, which confirms previous results, I find that the existence of...