Suchergebnisse

This paper deals with the issue of whether the Revenue Service (RS) should be allowed, or even encouraged, to negotiate settlement agreements with taxpayers subject to examination. We consider the case in which the RS enjoys discretion at the settlement stage, its stance being guided by officers' professional judgment. We show that discretionary settlements serve a desirable function, as they allow the RS to better exploit taxpayer‐specific information and to take advantage of the bargaining power it can wield at the negotiation stage.

This paper develops a model of tax enforcement in which the tax agency has discretionary power to make pre‐audit settlement offers. Settlements can take the form of either general amnesties or individual deals. It is shown that pre‐audit settlements allow the agency to overcome its limited control over the enforcement parameters (the agency takes the tax and penalty levels as given) and to increase net revenue. Amnesties prove to be superior to individual deals since they allow the agency not only to extract from taxpayers their defence costs, but also to reduce an excessive tax differential.

This paper extends the literature on tax amnesties by consid-ering two special grace programmes. The first is an offer by the government not to investigate taxpayers' accounts, the second not to prosecute indicted evaders. I analyse the impact of both measures on the taxpayers' optimal behaviour and the government's net revenue, and derive the conditions under which it would be desir-able to implement them on a permanent basis.

This paper extends the literature on tax amnesties by consid-ering two special grace programmes. The first is an offer by the government not to investigate taxpayers' accounts, the second not to prosecute indicted evaders. I analyse the impact of both measures on the taxpayers' optimal behaviour and the government's net revenue, and derive the conditions under which it would be desir-able to implement them on a permanent basis.