科学研究

Abstract:  We develop a novel estimator of unreported income, perhaps due to tax evasion, that does not depend on as strict identifying assumptions as previous estimators based on microeconomic data. The standard identifying assumption that the self-employed underreport income whereas wage and salary workers do not is likely to fail in countries where employees are often paid under the table or have a secondary source of self-employed income. Assuming that evading individuals have a higher consumption-income gap than non-evading ones due underreporting both to tax authorities and in surveys, an endogenous switching model with unknown sample separation enables the estimation of consumption-income gaps for both underreporting and truthful households. This avoids the need to identify non-evading and evading groups ex-ante. Using data from household budget surveys in eight post-communist countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Georgia, Armenia, Croatia, Serbia, Russian and Ukraine) we find that estimated evasion is substantially higher than found using previous methodologies. We also use difference-in-difference techniques to measure the impact of tax reform reducing marginal rates on the extent of under-reporting, finding some evidence of such an effect in high marginal tax regimes.

 

摘要：我们提出了一个新的方法估计未申报收入（比如由于避税原因）。这个估计量不像之前基于微观数据的估计量依赖于严格的识别假设。这方面标准的识别假设是自雇个体低报收入而受雇的工人不会低报收入。这样的假设对于用人单位经常私下支付员工的经济体或者自雇收入有多个来源的经济体显然并不适用。我们的假设是避税的个体在消费-收入差比没有避税的个体要高，因为避税个体的收入在向税务机关以及访谈中要比实际值偏低。基于这样的假设，我们设定了一个内生的机制转换模型，其中可以包括未知的样本分隔。这样我们可以同时估计低报群体以及真实报告群体的消费-收入差。我们的方法可以无须事先识别这两个群体。使用8个前社会主义国家（捷克共和国，斯洛伐克，格鲁吉亚，亚美尼亚，克罗地亚，塞尔维亚，俄罗斯和乌克兰）的家户预算调查数据，我们发现税收规避的发生率比之前文献中所识别的要高。我们也同时使用双差法测度降低边际税率的税收改革对税收规避发生率的影响，并在高边际税率地区找到了一些预期的影响。