Collaborative Research on the Relationship between Income Tax Auditing and Compliance

税务不合规被广泛认为是一种极端的 严重的问题。 最近的估计表明，至少90美元 每年有10亿美元的应税收入没有报告，平均每年有10亿美元的应税收入没有报告， 10%至15%的应纳税所得额。 关切 税收遵从度的下降导致了政策的爆发， 学术写作，但无论是原因和适当的 回应仍然存在争议。 早期税务合规文献 将税务合规视为“投资组合问题”， 最佳消费的“风险资产”（未报告的收入） 假设检测概率是固定的。 这些模型产生了模棱两可的结果。 最近的理论 创新试图走出决策理论 框架的委托代理问题和博弈论模型。 在这些方法中，允许美国国税局（IRS） 战略性地采取行动，根据 从纳税人那里得到的信息。 这些互动 模型，由Wilde，Reinganum和Graetz根据以前的 美国国家科学基金会的资助， IRS使用的审计规则和均衡报告规则 由纳税人使用。 这项研究的目的是测试一个博弈论 模型，并建立关于这种关系的经验证据 审计与合规之间的关系。 三个不同的数据集是 分析：（a）与1969年个人有关的横截面数据集 联邦所得税申报表，由美国国税局在 （B）与下列方面有关的横截面时间序列数据集： 1969-1985年期间国家一级的变量;（c）a数据 与1979年TCMP单个返回项目相关的集合， 最近由国税局组织的 主要的问题是 讨论的是，审计率是否以及以何种方式 与纳税人的合规行为进行互动。 考虑将IRS作为一个战略行为体引入 是法律经济理论的重大进步 总的来说，执行。 税收非政府组织的行为框架 合规性使其成为一个特别合适的案例， 实证检验的理论结构，明确采取 考虑到认知法律的相互作用和反应， 执法机构。 这项研究具有重要的科学意义 重要性在于，它不仅承诺提供关于 重要政策问题，同时也有力地加强基本 对产生遵守法律的条件的了解。

Tax noncompliance is widely recognized to be an extremely serious problem. Recent estimates suggest that at least $90 billion of taxable income goes unreported annually--an average of 10 to 15 percent of total taxable income. Concern about declining tax compliance has produced an outburst of policy and academic writing, but both the causes and the appropriate responses remain controversial. Early tax compliance literature treated tax compliance as a "portfolio problem," deriving rules for optimal consumption of the "risky asset" (unreported income) under the assumption that the probability of detection is fixed. These models produced ambiguous results. More recent theoretical innovations have attempted to move out of the decision-theoretic framework to a principal-agent problem and game-theoretic model. In these approaches the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is allowed to act strategically, conditioning its audit rules on the information it receives from taxpayers. These interactive models, developed by Wilde, Reinganum and Graetz under a previous NSF grant, yield predictions about the nature of the equilibrium audit rule used by the IRS and the equilibrium reporting rule used by taxpayers. The purpose of this research is to test a game-theoretic model and to develop empirical evidence on the relationship between audits and compliance. Three distinct data sets are analyzed: (a) a cross-section data set related to 1969 individual Federal Income Tax returns, which was assembled by the IRS in the seventies; (b) a cross-section, time series data set related to state-level variables for the period 1969-1985; and (c) a data set related to 1979 TCMP individual return items, which was recently assembled by the IRS. The major question to be addressed is whether, and in what fashion, audit rates respond interactively to the compliance behavior of taxpayers. The introduction of IRS as a strategic actor is considered to be a significant improvement in the economic theory of law enforcement generally. The behavioral framework of tax non- compliance makes it an especially appropriate case for an empirical test of the theoretical construct that explicitly takes into account the interactions and responses of the cognizant law enforcement agency. The research is of substantial scientific significance in that it promises not only to offer insights on an important policy issue but also to add powerfully to fundamental knowledge of the conditions that engender conformance to law.