This article estimates the degree of tax noncompliance using evidence from unaudited tax returns. Measurements of noncompliance are derived from the relationship between reported charitable contributions and reported income from wages and salary as compared to alternative reported income sources such as self-employment, farm and other small business income. Assuming that the source of one's income is unrelated to one's charitable inclinations and that the ratio of true income to taxable income does not vary by income source, any difference in the relationship between charitable contributions and the source of income can be attributed to (relative) underreporting by the individual. We find that the implied amount of noncompliance is significant and that it varies by source of income, as well as between positive and negative values of each type of income. Copyright 2007 The Author(s). Journal compilation Royal Economic Society 2007.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Volume (Year): 117 (2007) Issue (Month): 518 (03) Pages: 327-352 Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML
(with abstract),
plain text
(with abstract),
BibTeX,
RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite),
ReDIF
For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Christopher F. Baum).
Related research
Keywords:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)