Three-quarters of the world's population live in a country in which a value-added tax (VAT) is collected on sales of goods and services. The registration threshold determines which businesses—typically as measured by their annual revenues—remain exempt from the obligation to register for and...

Most countries with a VAT have a tax exemption for small businesses that have taxable sales below a certain threshold. The exemption reduces both the compliance costs for small businesses and the administrative costs for the government. We use a static analysis of the U.S. economy to determine...

This paper explores the feasibility to extend the Standard Cost Model (SCM) for calculating the costs of government regulation by taking all transaction costs into account which stem from the principal/agent relationship between regulatory authorities and economic entities. From that perspective...

We consider a political economy model in which agents have the possibility to hide part of their earnings in order to avoid taxation. Taxation is exclusively used to finance a pension system. If the pension system is implemented, agents in their old age receive a benefit which includes both a...