In the second half of the 2010s more than 100 countries--including all large offshore financial centers--started to automatically exchange bank information with foreign tax authorities. This informational big-bang marks a break with the situation of offshore bank secrecy that prevailed before....

This paper uses tax return data for the period 1951-1990 to investigate the rising share of adjusted gross income (AGI) that is reported on very high income tax returns. We find that most of the increase in the share of AGI reported by high-income taxpayers is due to an increase in reported...

This paper investigates the association between greater income inequality, de-facto fiscal space, and sovereign spreads. Using data from 50 countries in 2007, 2009 and 2011, we find that higher income inequality is associated with a lower tax base, lower de-facto fiscal space, and higher...

Global firms finance themselves through foreign subsidiaries, often shell companies in tax havens, which obscures their nationality in aggregate statistics. We associate the universe of traded securities with their issuer's ultimate parent and restate bilateral investment positions to better...

This paper studies the welfare effects of international investment to evade domestic taxes on domestic investment income. Capital mobility for tax evasion eliminates distortions in the intertemporal allocation of consumption, but introduces distortions in domestic production. Conversely, a...

In theory, the U.S. tax system aims to attribute and tax all business income to individuals. But the tax treatment of this income varies. Pass-through income is taxed when earned; capital-gains income is taxed when realized; dividends when distributed; other forms of business income may escape...

We estimate the elasticity of reported income with respect to tax rates for high earners using subnational variation across Canadian provinces. We argue this allows for better identification of tax elasticities than the existing literature. We find that elasticities of reported income at the...

This study assesses the redistributive impact of fiscal policy––and its individual elements––in Zambia. Zambia's 2015 fiscal policy reduces inequality; the largest reduction is created by in-kind public service expenditures on education. However, fiscal policy also increases poverty in...

This paper presents a new methodology to measure inequality that optimally combines household survey information and tax records to construct a complete income distribution. Combining the two data sources is necessary because, on the one hand, household surveys do not accurately represent the...

We estimate the returns to IRS audits of taxpayers across the income distribution. We find an additional $1 spent auditing taxpayers above the 90th income percentile yields more than $12 in revenue, while audits of below-median income taxpayers yield $5. We draw upon comprehensive internal...