IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jpbect/v7y2005i3p521-541.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Audit Misperception, Tax Compliance, and Optimal Uncertainty

Author

Listed:
  • YOUNGSE KIM

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the role of taxpayers’ misperceptions in determining compliance behavior. This paper also analyzes the effect of increased randomness on evasion, revenue, and welfare. Whether or not individuals choose to evade taxes depends on the perceived audit probability and on the fraction of honest taxpayers in the population. When individuals know the precise probability of audit, the model becomes in effect a game of coordination, a situation that gives rise to multiple equilibria. This paper incorporates audit misperception by introducing a small amount of uncertainty about the true audit probability. With the introduction of this uncertainty, we verify that there is a unique equilibrium cutoff point, such that each taxpayer evades if and only if his perceived signal falls below this cutoff. It is argued that this unique equilibrium outcome fares better than others in explaining empirical and experimental observations. We also find that, when reducing uncertainty has no cost, the optimal uncertainty is generally indeterminate, even when including zero uncertainty. Finally, we show that, when reducing uncertainty is costly, eliminating all uncertainty can never be optimal. In the limit as this cost vanishes, the optimal uncertainty is unique, meaning that introducing a small amount of enforcement cost resolves the indeterminacy problem.

Suggested Citation

  • Youngse Kim, 2005. "Audit Misperception, Tax Compliance, and Optimal Uncertainty," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 7(3), pages 521-541, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:jpbect:v:7:y:2005:i:3:p:521-541
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9779.2005.00215.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9779.2005.00215.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1467-9779.2005.00215.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frank A. Cowell, 1990. "Cheating the Government: The Economics of Evasion," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262532484, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Amedeo Piolatto & Matthew D. Rablen, 2017. "Prospect theory and tax evasion: a reconsideration of the Yitzhaki puzzle," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 82(4), pages 543-565, April.
    2. Sanchez Villalba, Miguel, 2015. "Global inspection games," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 59-72.
    3. Mohd Amran Mahat & Lai Ming Ling, 2011. "Featuring Tax Education in Non-accounting Curriculum: Survey Evidence," EconStor Conference Papers 56066, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    4. Gemmell, Norman & Ratto, Marisa, 2012. "Behavioral Responses to Taxpayer Audits: Evidence From Random Taxpayer Inquiries," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 65(1), pages 33-57, March.
    5. Sanchez-Villalba, Miguel, 2006. "Anti-evasion auditing policy in the presence of common income shocks," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 6543, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    6. Hanjoon M. Jung & Meng‐Yu Liang & C.C. Yang, 2022. "How much should we fund the IRS?," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(1), pages 120-139, February.
    7. Daniel McFadden, 2009. "The human side of mechanism design: a tribute to Leo Hurwicz and Jean-Jacque Laffont," Review of Economic Design, Springer;Society for Economic Design, vol. 13(1), pages 77-100, April.
    8. Feng Xiong & Shaojie Xiang & Peng Jin, 2019. "Study On Computational Experiments Of C2c Tax Compliance Based On Information Of Cybermediaries," Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 22(02), pages 1-29, March.
    9. Barbara Hartl & Eva Hofmann & Katharina Gangl & Martina Hartner-Tiefenthaler & Erich Kirchler, 2015. "Does the Sole Description of a Tax Authority Affect Tax Evasion? - The Impact of Described Coercive and Legitimate Power," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(4), pages 1-19, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paul E. Carrillo & M. Shahe Emran & Anita Rivadeneira, 2011. "Do Cheaters Bunch Together? Profit Taxes, Withholding Rates and Tax Evasion," Working Papers 2011-03, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    2. Dan Usher, 2006. "The Marginal Cost of Public Funds Is the Ratio of Mean Income to Median Income," Public Finance Review, , vol. 34(6), pages 687-711, November.
    3. David Bruner & Michael Jones & Michael McKee & Christian Vossler, 2015. "Tax Reporting Behavior: Underreporting Opportunities and Prepopulated Tax Returns," Working Papers 15-11, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.
    4. Traxler, Christian, 2010. "Social norms and conditional cooperative taxpayers," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 89-103, March.
    5. James Alm, 2024. "Tax Compliance, Technology, Trust, and Inequality in a Post-Pandemic World," Working Papers 2404, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    6. Kalina Koleva, 2005. "Seeking for an optimal tax administration: the efficiency costs’ approach [A la recherche de l'administration fiscale optimale : l'approche par les coûts d'efficience]," Post-Print halshs-00195354, HAL.
    7. Joseph G. Eisenhauer, 2006. "The Shadow Price of Morality," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 32(3), pages 437-456, Summer.
    8. Coricelli, Giorgio & Rusconi, Elena & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2014. "Tax evasion and emotions: An empirical test of re-integrative shaming theory," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 49-61.
    9. Bayer, Ralph & Cowell, Frank, 2016. "Tax compliance by firms and audit policy," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 38-52.
    10. Martin Halla, 2011. "The Link between the Intrinsic Motivation to Comply and Compliance Behaviour: A Critical Appraisal of Existing Evidence," Chapters, in: Friedrich Schneider (ed.), Handbook on the Shadow Economy, chapter 11, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Bayer, Ralph-C & Sutter, Matthias, 2009. "The excess burden of tax evasion--An experimental detection-concealment contest," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(5), pages 527-543, July.
    12. Bruno Chiarini & Marco Di Domizio & Elisabetta Marzano, 2009. "Why Do Underground Reducing Policies Often Fail Their Scope? Some Answers From The Italian Experience," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 308-318, July.
    13. Bayer, Ralph-C., 2006. "A contest with the taxman - the impact of tax rates on tax evasion and wastefully invested resources," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(5), pages 1071-1104, July.
    14. Reinhard Neck & Jens Wächter & Friedrich Schneider, 2012. "Tax avoidance versus tax evasion: on some determinants of the shadow economy," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(1), pages 104-117, February.
    15. Eric V. Edmonds, 2005. "Targeting child benefits in a transition economy," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 13(1), pages 187-210, January.
    16. Kalina Koleva, 2005. "A la recherche de l'administration fiscale optimale : l'approche par les coûts d'efficience," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques r05050, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    17. Timothy Besley & Anders Jensen & Torsten Persson, 2023. "Norms, Enforcement, and Tax Evasion," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 105(4), pages 998-1007, July.
    18. Hebous, Shafik & Keen, Michael, 2023. "Pareto-improving minimum corporate taxation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 225(C).
    19. Laura Sour, 2004. "An Economic Model of Tax Compliance with Individual Morality and Group Conformity," Economía Mexicana NUEVA ÉPOCA, CIDE, División de Economía, vol. 0(1), pages 43-61, January-J.
    20. Frey, Bruno S & Stutzer, Alois, 2000. "Happiness, Economy and Institutions," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(466), pages 918-938, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jpbect:v:7:y:2005:i:3:p:521-541. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/apettea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.