Increasing the tax compliance of self-employed business owners (particularly of trade-specific service providers) remains an ongoing challenge for tax authorities. From a compliance point of view, cash transactions are particularly problematic when services are paid for on the spot, as such...

This paper examines the compliance pattern of small businesses, using pooled 1985 and 1988 Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program (TCMP) data. Specifically, we focus on the voluntary reporting compliance of income from proprietorship, farm, and rental real estate activities. We find that...

A large body of research has estimated the effects on tax collection of informing taxpayers of their obligations. This paper examines the effects on voluntary tax payments of providing taxpayers with information on their obligations that is collected through massive information cross-checking...

PurposeUntil now, in the absence of direct survey data, economists have had to rely on indirect methods that employ proxy indicators to evaluate the size of the shadow economy. In this paper, however, the results of the first direct survey of business perceptions of the magnitude of the shadow...

This paper evaluates critically the popular structuralist representation that those operating in the informal sector are marginalized populations working as dependent employees out of economic necessity and in the absence of alternative means of livelihood. Reporting an empirical study of 1,518...

How many entrepreneurs start-up their business ventures conducting some or all of their trade in the informal economy? The aim of this paper is to answer this key question that has been seldom addressed using data from 600 face-to-face structured interviews conducted in Ukraine in late 2005 and...

This paper uses a panel of administrative data concerning 71,000 Italian small businesses observed in tax years 2005-2008. The aim of the paper is to evaluate the impact of a reform of audit rules implemented in 2006. The reform repealed a special audit exemption previously granted to businesses...

The paper analyses the relationship of tax compliance costs and business strategy. Due to instruments, like information technology, simplified cash accounting or outsourcing compliance activities to tax advisers, private businesses have a set of strategies to optimize their tax compliance cost...

In Albania, most businesses are classified as SMEs and their importance in the economy has grown exponentially in recent years. As SMEs comprise the majority of businesses, their taxes are crucial for the state budget. The purpose of this paper is to understand the SMEs' attitude toward tax...

Using panel data on the full population of corporate tax returns of Armenian firms, we study the behavioral response of firms to three size-dependent regulations. We find: i) a strong response to an accounting notch where International Financial Reporting Standards become mandatory; ii) a...