Taxation and Development: Evidence from Pakistani Administrative Tax Records

了解个人和公司对税收激励措施的行为反应对于优化税收制度设计至关重要。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差异，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着巨大的困难，这使得对发展中国家税收优惠影响的实证调查成为制定税收政策的当务之急。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规企业的决定似乎至关重要。该项目受益于从联邦税务局(FBR)获得巴基斯坦三种主要联邦税收的行政微观数据：个人所得税(对个人和非法人公司征收)、公司所得税和增值税(标签为一般销售税)。即使对于发达国家的研究来说，获得这种详尽的行政数据也是独一无二的，结合令人信服地查明巴基斯坦的税收差异，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。有些反应以前没有被探索过，我们将开发和应用新的实证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--造成巨大而引人注目的识别差异。我们将提供结构性分析，以估计应纳税所得额相对于边际税率的弹性，并阐明优化摩擦的重要性。我们将把这些对发展中国家的新的弹性估计与对发达国家的现有估计进行比较。其次，我们对企业所得税的分析将利用来自缺口的独特税收差异，以及2005年实施的基于群体的不同寻常的税制改革。这一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益的影响，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在实施过程中的各种税制改革，包括免税、零税率和税率变化。这一变化使我们能够分析增值税对登记决定(正式确定)和登记条件下的应税附加值的影响。发票数据使我们能够分析逃税和合规溢出的存在，这对增值税系统的可取性至关重要，但以前从未进行过测试。尽管我们的研究仅使用巴基斯坦的税务记录，但数据的独特性和引人注目的税收差异将使包括英国在内的其他发展中国家和发达国家的学者、政策制定者和税务管理人员对该项目感兴趣。

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.