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Excise Tax Evasion, Tax Revenue, and Welfare

Author

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  • Helmuth Cremer

    (University of Toulouse)

  • Firouz Gahvari

    (University of Illinois at Urbana—Champaign)

Abstract

This article investigates how tax evasion changes the relationship between tax rate, tax revenue, and welfare at the margin. It gives expressions for the marginal tax revenue, the marginal welfare loss, and the marginal cost of public funds and shows that tax evasion may reduce as well as increase the magnitudes of these measures. However, when the taxed good is perfectly inelastic in demand, tax evasion causes marginal cost of public funds to increase and exceed one (its value in the absence of evasion).

Suggested Citation

  • Helmuth Cremer & Firouz Gahvari, 1999. "Excise Tax Evasion, Tax Revenue, and Welfare," Public Finance Review, , vol. 27(1), pages 77-95, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:27:y:1999:i:1:p:77-95
    DOI: 10.1177/109114219902700104
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Martin Besfamille & Philippe De Donder & Jean Marie Lozachmeur, 2009. "Tax enforcement may decrease government revenue," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 29(4), pages 2665-2672.
    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. Liqun Liu, 2006. "Combining Distributional Weights and the Marginal Cost of Funds," Public Finance Review, , vol. 34(1), pages 60-79, January.
    4. José Manuel González Páramo, 2003. "Midiendo el coste marginal en bienestar de una reforma impositiva," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 166(3), pages 115-147, September.
    5. Laszlo Goerke & Marco Runkel, 2011. "Tax evasion and competition," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 58(5), pages 711-736, November.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. José Manuel González-Páramo, "undated". "Midiendo El Coste Marginal En Bienestar De Una Reforma Impositiva," Working Papers 32-02 Classification-JEL , Instituto de Estudios Fiscales.

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