Examines individual participation in amnesties, both from the point of view of what economic analysis would lead us to expect and on the basis of evidence from actual amnesty programs. Concludes that amnesties are appropriate in easing the transition to enhanced enforcement and seen to generate...

This paper explores one part of a 1994 Minnesota Department of Revenue field experiment designed to study the effectiveness of alternative enforcement strategies. Two letters containing different normative appeals were sent to two large groups of taxpayers; a control group received no letter....

In tax year 1988, delaying filing income tax returns cost the 73.2 million taxpayers claiming refunds nearly one billion dollars of interest. "Impatient" tax filers, who mail in their tax payments before the filing deadline, passed up $46 million in interest. We develop a model of tax filing...