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The Political Economy of the (Weak) Enforcement of Sales Tax

Author

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  • Besfamille, Martin
  • De Donder, Philippe
  • Lozachmeur, Jean-Marie

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to understand the determinants of the enforcement level of indirect taxation in a positive setting. We build a sequential game where individuals differing in their willingness to pay for a taxed good vote over the enforcement level. Firms then compete à la Cournot and choose the fraction of sales taxes to evade. We assume in most of the paper that the tax rate is set exogenously. Voters face the following trade-off: more enforcement increases tax collection but also increases the consumer price of the goods sold in an imperfectly competitive market. We obtain that the equilibrium enforcement level is the one most-preferred by the individual with the median willingness to pay, that it is not affected by the structure of the market (number of firms) and the firms' marginal cost, and that it decreases with the resource cost of evasion and with the tax rate. We also compare the enforcement level chosen by majority voting with the utilitarian level. In the last section, we endogenize the tax rate by assuming that individuals vote simultaneously over tax rate and enforcement level. We prove the existence of a Condorcet winner and show that it entails full enforcement (i.e., no tax evasion at equilibrium). The existence of markets with less than full enforcement then depends crucially on the fact that tax rates are not tailored to each market individually.

Suggested Citation

  • Besfamille, Martin & De Donder, Philippe & Lozachmeur, Jean-Marie, 2009. "The Political Economy of the (Weak) Enforcement of Sales Tax," CEPR Discussion Papers 7108, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:7108
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Luciano Fanti & Domenico Buccella, 2021. "Tax evasion and competition in a differentiated duopoly," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 48(3), pages 385-411, September.
    2. Luciano Fanti & Domenico Buccella, 2020. "Tax Evasion and Unions in a Cournot duopoly," Discussion Papers 2020/266, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    3. Domenico Buccella & Luciano Fanti & Luca Gori, 2023. "Tax evasion in a Cournot duopoly with unions," Discussion Papers 2023/293, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Imperfect competition; Intermediate preferences; Majority voting; Tax evasion;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion and Avoidance
    • H32 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Firm

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