This article discusses the issue of establishing, as many countries have, an independent revenue authority. Such organizations are conventionally and explicitly founded to combat inefficiencies, corruption and the politicization of tax administration that are all too evident here in the...

This article discusses the issue of establishing, as many countries have, an independent revenue authority. Such organizations are conventionally and explicitly founded to combat inefficiencies, corruption and the politicization of tax administration that are all too evident here in the...

The progress made by the national government in consolidating its fiscal position between 2002 and 2006 proved unsustainable as its revenue effort started to go down once again in 2007 after a brief improvement in 2005-2007. With the more expansionary stance taken by the government in 2009 as...

We provide a first attempt to include an off-balance sheet, implicit insurance to SIFIs into a consistent assessment of fiscal sustainability, for 27 countries of the European Union. We first calculate tax gaps à la Blanchard (OECD Economics Department Working Papers, No 79, <CitationRef CitationID="CR6">1990</CitationRef>) and...</citationref>

Unobserved economy indicates all the productive activities that are beyond the sources of the data normally used to implement National Accounts, thus compromising the comprehensiveness of GDP. This paper aims to survey the five areas that compose the unobserved economy: underground economy,...

We provide a first attempt to include off-balance sheet, implicit insurance to SIFIs into a consistent assessment of fiscal sustainability, for 27 countries of the European Union. We first calculate tax gaps à la Blanchard (1990) and Blanchard et al. (1990). We then introduce two alternative...

The global economic crisis has highlighted the continuing problem of tax evasion. For tax agencies to respond, an important antecedent necessitates knowing the extent of the problem. This study is the first to comprehensively review recent research on the tax gap. Our primary contributions are...

One of the most serious problems of fiscal character is the issue of the tax gap. The tax gap is defined as the amount of tax liability faced by taxpayers that is not paid on time. The tax gap comes from three main areas of non-compliance with the tax law – firstly from underreporting of...

Abstract This study empirically investigates the extent of noncompliance with the tax code and examines the determinants of federal income tax evasion in the U.S. Employing a refined version of Feige’s (1986; 1989) General Currency Ratio (GCR) model to estimate a time series of unreported income...

New Estimates of U.S. Currency Abroad, the Domestic Money Supply and the Unreported Economy Edgar L. Feige * Abstract Despite financial innovations that have created important new substitutes for cash usage, per capita holdings of U.S. currency amount to $2950. Yet American households and...