We study the optimal observability of the tax base within the standard linear income tax problem, where observability is determined by the government's investment into the accurate measurement of the tax base.

This paper documents the rise of the Internet as a source of cigarette tax competition for states in the United States. Using data on cigarette tax rates, taxable cigarette sales and individual smoking rates by state from 1980 to 2005 merged with data on Internet penetration, the paper documents...

Although Norway has a long tradition of public disclosure of tax filings, starting in 2001 anyone with Internet access could obtain individual information on income and income taxes paid. We examine the effect on income reporting of this change in the degree of public disclosure, making use of...

<DIV>As a united global economy evolves, economists and policymakers are forced to consider whether the current system of taxing income is inconsistent with the trend toward liberalized world financial flows and increased international competition. To help assess existing tax policies and incentives,...</div>

<DIV>The increasing globalization of economic activity is bringing an awareness of the international consequences of tax policy. The move toward the common European market in 1992 raises the important question of how inefficiencies in the various tax systems—such as self-defeating tax competition...</div>

We analyze the optimal taxation of firms when the government faces fixed (per-firm) administrative costs of tax collection. The tax instruments at the government's disposal are a fixed (per-firm) fee and a linear tax on output. If all firms in an industry are taxed, we show that it is optimal to...

Authority, and the behavioral response to authority, is central to many important questions in public economics, but has received insufficient attention from economists. In particular, research has not differentiated between legitimate power and the presumption of expert knowledge, what we call...

In 1995 a group of 1724 randomly selected Minnesota taxpayers was informed by letter that the returns they were about to file would be 'closely examined'. Compared to a control group that did not receive this letter, low and middle-income taxpayers in the treatment group on average increased tax...

The idea of making death a taxable event infuriates some people. Winston Churchill called estate taxes an attempt to tax dead people rather than the living. Steve Forbes campaigned in favor of “no taxation without respiration.” Bruce Bartlett (1997) points out that a key plank in the...