Governments of all kinds have frequently turned to tax amnesties as part of their fiscal programs. An amnesty typically allows individuals or firms to pay previously unpaid taxes without being subject to some or all of the financial and criminal penalties that the discovery of tax evasion normally brings. In the last twenty years, nearly forty states in the United States have enacted some form of tax amnesty, sometimes more than once. Many other countries have also used one or more amnesties. These countries include those in all parts of the world: in Europe (Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Switzerland), Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Uruguay), Asia (India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka), and the Pacific (Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, the Philippines).Tax amnesties are a controversial revenue tool. The obvious purpose of a tax amnesty is to raise short-run revenue. This may or may not work, and it can bring about expectations of future amnesties thereby reducing taxpayer compliance after the amnesty. This paper discusses basic design features of an amnesty, evaluates the benefits and costs of an amnesty, examines the country experiences of several "typical" amnesties, and presents some conclusions and recommendations for the introduction of a tax amnesty in the Russian Federation.
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.
References listed on IDEAS 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.:
Herman B. Leonard & Richard J. Zeckhauser, 1987.
"Amnesty, Enforcement, and Tax Policy,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 1, pages 55-86
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!]
Other versions:
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.)