IRS - Understanding Taxpayer Compliance Behavior
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Understanding Taxpayer Compliance Behavior
While the tax gap reflects the extent of taxpayer noncompliance, it is also important to understand why taxpayers are compliant or noncompliant. This section contains papers that seek to provide insights into taxpayer behavior through:
- Econometric analyses
- Lab experiments
- Field or natural experiments
- Other modeling
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Econometric Analysis
The papers in this section employ statistical regression techniques to explain the variation in observed compliance behavior, controlling statistically for other drivers of that behavior.
| Criminal Investigation Enforcement Activities and Taxpayer Noncompliance | |
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Author: |
Jeffrey Dubin, California Institute of Technology |
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Publication date: |
June 2004 |
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Written for: |
2004 IRS Research Conference |
Tax Evasion, Income Inequality and Opportunity Costs of Compliance |
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Author: |
Kim M. Bloomquist, IRS, Office of Research |
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Publication date: |
November 2003 |
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Written for: |
2003 National Tax Association Annual Conference |
The Impact of the IRS on Voluntary Tax Compliance: Preliminary Empirical Results |
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Author: |
Alan H. Plumley, Technical Advisor, IRS, Office of Research |
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Publication date: |
November 2002 |
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Written for: |
2002 National Tax Association Conference |
The Determinants of Individual Income Tax Compliance: Estimating the Impacts of Tax Policy, Enforcement and IRS Responsiveness |
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Author: |
Alan H. Plumley, Technical Advisor, IRS, Office of Research |
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Publication date: |
November 1996, revised |
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Written for: |
IRS Publication 1916 |
Lab Experiments
Academic researchers have simulated taxpaying rules and incentives in a lab environment, which provides some insights into why taxpayers comply or don't comply with their tax obligations.
| Audit Information Dissemination, Taxpayer Communication, and Compliance: An Experimental Approach | |
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Authors: |
James Alm, Georgia State University, |
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Publication date: |
June 2004 |
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Written for: |
2004 IRS Research Conference |
Field or Natural Experiments
Field experiments are conducted with real taxpayers in their actual taxpaying environment, and are designed to allow comparisons between some who are intentionally exposed to a change in that environment and others who are not, providing an indication of the value of the change. Natural experiments are not designed beforehand, but are rather analyses that seek to estimate the impact of an actual change that took place by comparing data from before versus after periods, controlling for other likely explanations of the observed behavior.
| Economic and Behavioral Determinants of Tax Compliance: Evidence from the 1997 Arkansas Tax Penalty Amnesty Program | |
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Authors: |
Christina M. Ritsema, Hope College, |
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Publication date: |
June 2003 |
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Written for: |
2003 IRS Research Conference |
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