IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v85y1995i1-2p127-41.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Tax Complexity and Fiscal Illusion

Author

Listed:
  • Heyndels, B
  • Smolders, C

Abstract

By using the Hirschman-Herfindahl index (HHC) the traditional approach to the tax complexity hypothesis introduces a restriction into the fiscal illusion model which has no theoretical foundation. The authors analyze the existing framework of the tax complexity hypothesis in detail and propose to capture this complexity through a Hannah and Kay index. They extend the theoretical framework by considering the expected return on investment in information. The empirical tests show that the HHC overestimates the importance of size inequalities between different taxes while underestimating the impact of the number of taxes as a source of informational costs. The expected revenue hypothesis is not supported. Copyright 1995 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Suggested Citation

  • Heyndels, B & Smolders, C, 1995. "Tax Complexity and Fiscal Illusion," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 85(1-2), pages 127-141, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:85:y:1995:i:1-2:p:127-41
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yongzheng Liu & Haibo Feng, 2015. "Tax structure and corruption: cross-country evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 162(1), pages 57-78, January.
    2. David Heres & Steffen Kallbekken & Ibon Galarraga, 2013. "Understanding Public Support for Externality-Correcting Taxes and Subsidies: A Lab Experiment," Working Papers 2013-04, BC3.
    3. Awasthi, Rajul & Bayraktar, Nihal, 2014. "Can tax simplification help lower tax corruption ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6988, The World Bank.
    4. Cherry, Todd L. & Kallbekken, Steffen & Kroll, Stephan, 2014. "The impact of trial runs on the acceptability of environmental taxes: Experimental evidence," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 84-95.
    5. Nihal Bayraktar, 2016. "Tax simplification and tax efficiency," EcoMod2016 9100, EcoMod.
    6. Roberto Dell’Anno & Paulo Mourao, 2012. "Fiscal Illusion around the World," Public Finance Review, , vol. 40(2), pages 270-299, March.
    7. Ashworth, John & Heyndels, Bruno, 2000. "A schema-theoretic approach to politicians' definitions of tax issues," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 21-41, February.
    8. Rajul Awasthi & Nihal Bayraktar, 2015. "Can tax simplification help lower tax corruption?," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 5(2), pages 297-330, December.
    9. Musharraf Cyan & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez & VIoleta Vulovic, 2013. "Measuring tax effort: Does the estimation approach matter and should effort be linked to expenditure goals?," International Center for Public Policy Working Paper Series, at AYSPS, GSU paper1308, International Center for Public Policy, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University.
    10. Vining, Aidan R. & Moore, Mark A., 2017. "Potash ownership and extraction: Between a rock and a hard place in Saskatchewan," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 71-80.
    11. Mark A. Moore & Aidan R. Vining, 2023. "PPP performance evaluation: the social welfare goal, principal–agent theory and political economy," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 56(2), pages 267-299, June.
    12. Musharraf Rasool Cyan & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez & Violeta Vulovic, 2014. "New approaches to measuring tax effort," Chapters, in: Richard M. Bird & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (ed.), Taxation and Development: The Weakest Link?, chapter 2, pages 27-68, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. David R. Heres & Steffen Kallbekken & Ibon Galarraga, 2017. "The Role of Budgetary Information in the Preference for Externality-Correcting Subsidies over Taxes: A Lab Experiment on Public Support," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 66(1), pages 1-15, January.
    14. Markus Diller & Markus Grottke & Georg Schneider, 2013. "Komplexität steuerrechtlicher Normen — Ein spieltheoretischer Erklärungsansatz," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 65(2), pages 110-135, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:85:y:1995:i:1-2:p:127-41. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.