Taxation and Development: Evidence from Pakistani Administrative Tax Records

了解个人和企业对税收激励的行为反应对于税收制度的优化设计至关重要。对这些行为反应的实证分析在经济研究中起着核心作用，但由于数据限制或缺乏外生税收变化，研究人员主要关注发达国家个人所得税的行为影响。与发达国家相比，发展中国家在提高理想的收入水平方面面临巨大困难，这使得对发展中国家税收激励影响的实证调查对于设计税收政策至关重要。阻碍发展的一个特别困难是非正规部门的重要性。因此，为了实现可持续增长，更好地理解公司和小企业离开非正式状态的决定似乎至关重要。本项目得益于从巴基斯坦联邦税收委员会（FBR）获得有关巴基斯坦三种主要联邦税的行政微观数据的独特途径：个人所得税（对个人和非法人公司征收）、企业所得税和增值税（称为一般销售税）。即使在发达国家的研究中，获得这种详尽的行政数据也是独一无二的，并且与巴基斯坦令人信服的税收变化相结合，可以估计个人和公司的行为反应，包括实际影响、避税和逃税。有些反应以前没有探索过，我们将开发和应用新的经验方法来解决这些问题。首先，我们对个人所得税的分析将利用缺口的存在——平均税率的离散跳跃——产生巨大而令人信服的识别变化。我们将提供一个结构性分析，以估计应税收入相对于边际税率的弹性，并阐明优化摩擦的重要性。我们将对发展中国家的这些新的弹性估计值与发达国家的现有估计值进行比较。其次，我们对企业所得税的分析将利用来自不同等级的独特税收变化，以及2005年实施的不寻常的基于队列的税收改革。这种变化使我们能够分析企业所得税对公司合并决策和企业应税收入的影响，类似于个人应税收入的弹性。最后，我们对增值税的分析将利用该制度的逐步实施以及实施过程中的各种税制改革，包括免税，零税率和税率变化。这种变化使我们能够分析增值税对注册（正式化）决定的影响以及对注册条件下的应税增值的影响。发票数据使我们能够分析逃税和合规溢出的存在，这对增值税制度的可取性至关重要，但以前未经测试。尽管我们的研究只使用巴基斯坦的税收记录，但数据的独特性和引人注目的税收变化将使该项目对其他发展中国家和发达国家（包括英国）的学者、政策制定者和税务管理人员产生兴趣

Understanding behavioural responses by individuals and firms to tax incentives is essential for the optimal design of tax systems. The empirical analysis of these behavioural responses plays a central role in economic research, but researchers have mainly focused on the behavioural effects of personal income taxation in developed countries due to data restrictions or the lack of exogenous tax variation. In comparison with developed countries, developing countries face enormous difficulties raising a desirable level of revenues, which makes the empirical investigation of the impact of tax incentives in developing countries imperative for the design of tax policies. One particular difficulty that hinders development is the significance of the informal sector. Hence, to achieve sustainable growth, a better understanding of the decisions of firms and small businesses to leave informality seems crucial.This project benefits from unique access to administrative micro data from the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for the three main federal taxes in Pakistan: personal income taxation (imposed on individuals and unincorporated firms), corporate income taxation, and value-added taxation (labelled the general sales tax). Access to such exhaustive administrative data is unique even for developed-country research and in combination with compelling identifying tax variation in Pakistan allows for estimating behavioural responses of both individuals and firms, including real effects, tax avoidance and tax evasion. Some responses have not been explored before and we will develop and apply new empirical methods for these. First, our analysis of the personal income tax will exploit the presence of notches-discrete jumps in the average tax rate-creating large and compelling identifying variation. We will provide a structural analysis to estimate the elasticity of taxable income with respect to the marginal tax rate and shed light on the importance of optimization frictions. We will compare these novel elasticity estimates for a developing country with existing estimates for developed countries. Second, our analysis of the corporate income tax will exploit unique tax variation coming from notches as well as an unusual cohort-based tax reform implemented in 2005. This variation allows us to analyse the effect of corporate income taxation on the decision to incorporate and on corporate taxable earnings, akin the elasticity of taxable income for individuals. Finally, our analysis of the value-added tax will exploit the gradual implementation of the system and various tax reforms during the implementation including tax exemptions, zero-rating and changes in tax rates. This variation allows us to analyse the effect of the VAT on the decision to register (formalize) and on taxable value added conditional on registration. Invoice data allows us to analyse evasion and the presence of compliance spill-overs, crucial to the desirability of a VAT system, but previously untested.Even though our research uses exclusively Pakistani tax records, the uniqueness of the data and the compelling tax variation will make the project interesting to academics, policy makers and tax administrators in other developing and developed countries, including the U.K.