Approaches For Estimating Noncompliance: Examples From Federal Taxation In The United States  

Oleh:

Feinstein, Jonathan S.

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: The Economic Journal (EBSCO) vol. 109 no. 456 (Jun. 1999), page 360-369.
Topik: federal taxation
Fulltext: 360.pdf (131.74KB)

Isi artikel

Crime and underground economic activity are a fact of life around the world. Most societies attempt to control these activities through the expenditure of resources on monitoring, prosecution, punishment, and educational programmes. Gathering statistics about who is engaging in illegal or underground activity, the frequencies with which various crimes or underground transactions are occurring, and the severity or magnitude of these acts, is crucial for making good decisions regarding our allocation of resources in this area. Unfortunately, in general it is very dif®cult to obtain accurate information about these issues. This is partly because the individuals engaged in such activities wish not to be identi®ed and often take actions to avoid detection, and partly because by their very nature the activities tend not to generate economic, accounting, legal, demographic or other cultural records. The fact that it is dif®cult to obtain accurate information about the activities, however, does not in any way imply that we should not make a concerted effort to try to obtain the best information we can. I believe the cost associated with attempting to determine the extent and nature of these activities is in most circumstances well below the expected bene®t, which includes the likelihood of improved decisionmaking by relevant government personnel and the general public. As a result, I also believe the debate about developing estimates of illegal or underground economic activity should primarily focus on practical issues related to how best to go about developing estimates that are as reliable as possible.

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