IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ausman/v18y1993i1p69-89.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Compliance Costs of Taxation in Australia and Tax Simplification: The Issues

Author

Listed:
  • Jeff Pope

    (Department of Economics, Curtin Univeristy of Technology, PO Box U1987, Perth WA 6001.)

Abstract

This paper identifies six phases in the development of the compliance costs of taxation, in an Australian context. Estimates of the compliance costs of personal and public companies' income taxation are presented, and an international comparison cautiously made. Major policy issues related to compliance costs are considered. Cost-reducing measures are identified and classified. Specific proposals for Australia's income-tax system are considered. The paper concludes that the compliance costs of income taxation in Australia are high, and that simplification of income tax is likely to lead to significant economic resource savings. The prognosis for reform is mixed, but the overall view is not optimistic.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeff Pope, 1993. "The Compliance Costs of Taxation in Australia and Tax Simplification: The Issues," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 18(1), pages 69-89, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:ausman:v:18:y:1993:i:1:p:69-89
    DOI: 10.1177/031289629301800104
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/031289629301800104
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/031289629301800104?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joel Slemrod, 1992. "Did the Tax Reform Act of 1986 Simplify Tax Matters?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 45-57, Winter.
    2. J. Pope & C. Dongling, 1993. "Determinants of the Time Taken to Deal with Personal Income Tax Affairs in Australia," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 93-11, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    3. Joel Slemrod, 1989. "The Return To Tax Simplification: an Econometric Analysis," Public Finance Review, , vol. 17(1), pages 3-27, January.
    4. Blumenthal, Marsha & Slemrod, Joel, 1992. "The Compliance Cost of the U.S. Individual Income Tax System: A Second Look After Tax Reform," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 45(2), pages 185-202, June.
    5. Blumenthal, Marsha & Slemrod, Joel, 1992. "The Compliance Cost of the U.S. Individual Income Tax System: A Second Look After Tax Reform," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 45(2), pages 185-202, June.
    6. Joel Slemrod & Nikki Sorum, 1984. "The Compliance Cost of the U.S. Individual Income Tax System," NBER Working Papers 1401, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. J. Pope & R. Fayle, 1993. "The Compliance Costs of Taxation in Australia and Tax Simplification," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 93-25, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    8. Marc Lombard, 1991. "Income Distribution In Australia 1983–1989," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 10(3), pages 52-63, September.
    9. Slemrod, Joel, 1990. "Optimal Taxation and Optimal Tax Systems," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(1), pages 157-178, Winter.
    10. J. Pope, 1989. "The Compliance Costs of Personal Income Taxation - a Review of the Lessons," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 89-03, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    11. J. Pope & R. Fayle, 1991. "The Compliance Costs of Public Companies' Income Taxation in Australia 1986/87: Empirical results," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 91-09, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Sofie De Schoenmaker & Philippe Van Cauwenberge & Heidi Vander Bauwhede, 2014. "Effects of local fiscal policy on firm profitability," The Service Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(16), pages 1289-1306, December.
    2. Das-Gupta, Arindam, 2004. "Compliance cost of the personal income tax in India, 2000-01: Preliminary estimates," Working Papers 04/9, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    3. J. Pope & R. Fayle, 1993. "The Compliance Costs of Taxation in Australia and Tax Simplification," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 93-25, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Felix Bransch & Paul Gurr, 2019. "Die Nachfrage nach Steuerberatungsleistungen: Evidenz für deutsche Steuerpflichtige [The Demand for Tax Preparation Services: Evidence from German Taxpayers]," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 71(3), pages 245-270, November.
    2. Peter, Klara Sabirianova & Buttrick, Steve & Duncan, Denvil, 2010. "Global Reform of Personal Income Taxation, 1981–2005: Evidence From 189 Countries," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 63(3), pages 447-478, September.
    3. Edgar L. Feige, 2000. "Taxation for the 21st century: the automated payment transaction (APT) tax," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 15(31), pages 474-511.
    4. Idawati Ibrahim Author_Email: idawati@uum.edu.my & Jeff Pope, 2011. "Compliance Costs Of Electronic Tax Filing For Personal Taxpayers In Malaysia," International Conference on Management (ICM 2011) Proceeding 2011-067-242, Conference Master Resources.
    5. Vaillancourt, François, 1999. "Les coûts de conformité à la fiscalité des firmes et des individus : une recension des écrits," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 75(1), pages 215-237, mars-juin.
    6. J. Pope & R. Fayle, 1993. "The Compliance Costs of Taxation in Australia and Tax Simplification," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 93-25, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    7. Susan M. Dynarski & Judith E. Scott-Clayton, 2008. "Complexity and Targeting in Federal Student Aid: A Quantitative Analysis," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 22, pages 109-150, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Hoppe, Thomas & Schanz, Deborah & Sturm, Susann & Sureth, Caren, 2019. "Measuring tax complexity across countries: A survey study on MNCs," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 245, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
    9. Jaspal Singh & Poonam Sharma, 2010. "Compliance Cost Burden of Individual Income-Tax Assessees in India: An Empirical Study," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 35(1), pages 7-24, February.
    10. Cuccia, Andrew D. & Carnes, Gregory A., 2001. "A closer look at the relation between tax complexity and tax equity perceptions," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 113-140, April.
    11. Dynarski, Susan M. & Scott–Clayton, Judith E., 2006. "The Cost of Complexity in Federal Student Aid: Lessons From Optimal Tax Theory and Behavioral Economics," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 59(2), pages 319-356, June.
    12. Friedman, David A. & Waldfogel, Joel, 1995. "The Administrative and Compliance Cost of Manual Highway Toll Collection: Evidence From Massachusetts and New Jersey," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 48(2), pages 217-28, June.
    13. Sebastian Eichfelder, 2011. "Steuerkomplexität als Markteintrittsbarriere?: Entscheidungswirkungen steuerlicher Planungs-und Vollzugskosten," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 63(8), pages 810-831, December.
    14. Bellemare, Charles & Deversi, Marvin & Englmaier, Florian, 2019. "Complexity and Distributive Fairness Interact in Affecting Compliance Behavior," Rationality and Competition Discussion Paper Series 190, CRC TRR 190 Rationality and Competition.
    15. Fernando M. Aragon, 2013. "Local Spending, Transfers, and Costly Tax Collection," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 66(2), pages 343-370, June.
    16. Sebastian Eichfelder & François Vaillancourt, 2014. "Tax Compliance Costs: A Review of Cost Burdens and Cost Structures," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 210(3), pages 111-148, September.
    17. Louis Kaplow, 1995. "How Tax Complexity and Enforcement Affect the Equity and Efficiency of The Income Tax," NBER Working Papers 5391, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Joel B. Slemrod & Marsha Blumenthal, 1996. "The Income Tax Compliance Cost of Big Business," Public Finance Review, , vol. 24(4), pages 411-438, October.
    19. Fernando Aragon, 2009. "The Flypaper Effect Revisited," STICERD - Economic Organisation and Public Policy Discussion Papers Series 004, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    20. Johnathan G. Conzelmann & T. Austin Lacy & Nichole D. Smith, 2019. "Another Day Another Dollar Metric? An Event History Analysis of Student Loan Repayment," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 14(4), pages 627-651, Fall.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    TAXATION; COMPLIANCE; COSTS;
    All these keywords.

    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:sae:ausman:v:18:y:1993:i:1:p:69-89. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.agsm.edu.au .

    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.